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NEW LIGHT ON THE 
LIFE OF JESUS 



NEW LIGHT ON THE 
LIFE OF JESUS 



BY 



CHARLES AUGUSTUS BRIGGS, D.D., D.Litt. 

Edward Robinson Professor of Biblical Theology 
The Union Theological Seminary, New York 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1904 



L'dR*KY o* CONGRESS 
Twe Cepies Received 

FEB 6 1904 

3CopyrigM Entry 
CLASS «- XXc. No. 

7 copy's^* 






Copyright, IQ04 
By Charles Scribner's Sons 



All rights reserved 
Published, February, 1904 



TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 

NEW YORK 







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DAVID R. FRAZER, D.D. 

PASTOR 

OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY 

CLASSMATE AND LIFE-LONG FRIEND 



PREFACE 



THIS volume does not propose to give a 
new life of Jesus Christ our Saviour ; but 
to give a new light upon the life of our Lord 
which has come to the author in his recent 
studies. In the term 1861-62 of the Union 
Theological Seminary, it was my privilege to 
study with my classmates the Greek Harmony 
of the Gospels under the greatest of American 
Biblical scholars, Edward Robinson. An entire 
year was given to this study at that time. Sub- 
sequently in 1867 and 1868 I renewed this 
study, but from a more historical point of view, 
at the University of Berlin, under the guidance 
of one of the greatest theologians of the past cen- 
tury, Isaac Dorner. I then reviewed the entire 
literature of the Life of Jesus in those troublous 
times which were dominated by the negative 
criticism of Strauss, Baur, Renan, Schenkel, and 
Keim. As a result of these studies I made a 
revision of Robinson's Harmony for my private 



vin PREFACE 

use. My studies for many years, from 1874- 
1891 were concentrated upon the Old Testa- 
ment, because I was called to use my utmost 
endeavors in battling for the rights of the 
Higher Criticism and in the work of reconstruct- 
ing the Old Testament material in the light of 
that Criticism. In 1891 when I was transferred 
from the Hebrew chair to the new chair of 
Biblical Theology, it was necessary for me to 
renew my New Testament studies and to con- 
centrate my attention upon them. It was in- 
evitable that 1 should apply the same rigorous 
methods of Criticism to the New Testament 
that I had applied for many years to the Old 
Testament. I had the advantage of coming to 
the New Testament afresh from studies in the 
Hebrew and Aramaic Scriptures, and so was 
prepared to investigate and discern the Sem- 
itic originals at the basis of the New Testa- 
ment. 

The Harmony of Robinson was based on the 
chronological order of the Gospel of John. This 
order I abandoned many years ago. But it was 
only gradually that my confidence in the chrono- 
logical order of Mark was weakened. One of 
these pre-suppositions, or both, are at the basis 
of the Harmonies of the Gospels and Lives of 



PREFACE ix 

Jesus of modern times. So soon as these pre- 
suppositions were abandoned, and I felt as free 
to study the whole material as Tatian, the earli- 
est harmonist, did, a cloud was lifted from the 
Gospels and a number of questions sprang up 
which pressed for a solution. The most essential 
of these were : 

1. When did Jesus begin His Ministry ? 
2. Where was Jesus during the absence of the 
Twelve? The answer to these two questions 
which came to me flooded the Gospels with new 
light. I saw that there was a Galilean Ministry 
of Jesus prior to the arrest of John the Bap- 
tist, and that while five pairs of the Twelve 
were absent on a Mission in Galilee, Jesus with 
James and John, one pair of the Twelve, was 
carrying on His ministry in Jerusalem, and at 
intervals with another pair, Thomas and Mat- 
thew, in Peraea ; and so the order of the ministry 
became altogether different from that pre-sup- 
posed in the modern Harmonies and Lives of 
Jesus. 

At first the result was startling, but I was 
encouraged by finding that my results were in 
many respects in accord with that ancient har- 
monist, Tatian, and by recalling that the ordinary 
arrangement of the Life of Jesus is indeed quite 



x PREFACE 

modern. It was not, however, until I began to 
trace the consequences of this new arrangement 
of the ministry in all its details, and I saw the 
material of the Gospels take its place with so 
much ease, so much propriety, and with such 
simplicity and beautiful harmony, that I was 
convinced that the essential problems of the 
Gospels had been solved. 

Ten years ago I said : "We would prefer 
some chronological scheme. But such a chrono- 
logical scheme is sufficiently difficult in the 
study of the life of the Messiah. It is still more 
difficult when we have to put His discourses in 
their historical relations. Any attempt to do 
this burdens us with numberless questions of 
historical criticism where it is impossible at pres- 
ent to attain definite results in some of the 
most important passages. Many attempts have 
been made to trace a development in the Mes- 
sianic consciousness of Jesus, and in His doctrine 
of the kingdom of God, but none of these has 
found favor. It seems impracticable in the 
present stage of the criticism of the Gospels to 
give an accurate and comprehensive statement of 
such a development. It is sufficiently difficult 
if the study is limited to the Synoptics. It is at 
present impossible if the Gospel of John is in- 



PREFACE xi 

eluded in the study." (Messiah of the Gospels, 
pp. 72-73.) 

But now I have arranged the Life of Jesus in 
a simple and orderly chronological scheme. I 
have also traced the Messianic idea from its 
origin in a historical situation, in its development 
in accordance with historical circumstances, even 
to its climax. I have also traced in a volume 
soon to be published an orderly development in 
the entire Ethical Teaching of Jesus. 

This new light solves most of the difficult 
problems of the Gospels, fills up the chasm be- 
tween the Synoptists and the Gospel of John, 
and satisfies the most searching inquiries of 
modern Higher Criticism and Historical Criti- 
cism. I have subjected these results to the 
most careful criticism that I could apply to my 
own work, again and again. It may be that I 
have myself been to some extent blinded by the 
new light. If so I shall be glad to be corrected. 
The book must go into the fires of criticism, the 
hotter the better. If the light is a true light it 
will abide. The question is submitted with 
confidence to Christian scholars and to the 
Christian public. 

The references to the author's previous works 
are given without mention of his name. He 



xii PREFACE 

has avoided discussions of the opinions of other 
scholars, not because he undervalues them but 
to make the volume as untechnical as possible 
and to set forth distinctly the new view he pro- 
poses. 

Chapters L, III., and IV. were printed as arti- 
cles in the Expository Times, September, Octo- 
ber, and November, 1903, and are reprinted with 
few additions. 



CONTENTS 



Page 

I. When did Jesus begin His Ministry ? . 1 

II. Jesus and John the Baptist 17 

III. The Twelve and the Seventy 31 

IV. Where was Jesus during the Absence of the 

Twelve ? 40 

v. how many and what feasts did jesus 

ATTEND ? 50 

VI. The Per^ean Ministry 64 

VII. Jesus and the Pharisees 79 

VIII. When did Jesus First Declare his Messiah- 
ship ? 91 

IX. The Order of Events in Passion Week . .101 
X. The Forty Days of the Risen Jesus . . .110 

XI. The Synoptic Problem 125 

XII. The Composition of the Gospel of John . .140 

XIII. The Gospel of the Infancy 159 

XIV. Outline of the Life of Jesus 167 

Index 193 



NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF 

JESUS 



WHEN DID JESUS BEGIN HIS MINISTRY* 

ONE of the most difficult questions con- 
nected with the early ministry of Jesus 
is : when Jesus began His ministry. The four 
Gospels differ in their statements. According 
to the Gospel of Mark " after that John was 
delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee ', preaching 
the gospel of God, and saying, The time is ful- 
filled, and the kingdom of God is at hand : repent 
ye, and believe in the gospel." 1 It is a sure result 
of the modern criticism of the Gospels, that the 
Gospels of Matthew and Luke used Mark as a 
source, but with freedom, usually condensing, 
but sometimes enlarging and explaining. In 
Matthew we find : "Now when he heard that 
John was delivered up, he withdrew into Galilee ; 

1 Mark i. 14, 15. 



2 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

[and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in 
Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the borders of 
Zebulun and Naphtali : that it might be fulfilled 
which was spoken by Isaiah. . . . ] F?~o?n 
that time began Jesus to preach, and to say, 
Repent ye ; for the kingdom of heaven is at 
handy 1 It is evident that all the material in 
brackets 2 is an addition to the source. The 
other verses give essentially the same as Mark, 
but with important modifications, which we 
shall consider later on. Luke tells us: "And 
Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into 
Galilee: [and a fame went out concerning him 
through all the region round about. And he 
taught in their synagogues, being glorified of 
all. "] 3 It is evident that the bracketed material 4 
is an addition to the source, and that while the 
phrase "in the power of the Spirit" is unique, the 
reference to the agency of the Spirit is charac- 
teristically Lukan, and is original with this Gos- 
pel. There remains, therefore, as derived from 
the Markan source, only "and Jesus returned into 
Galilee " ; the reference to the arrest of John the 
Baptist being omitted altogether. Luke is com- 



1 Matt. iv. 12-17. 2 Verses 13-16. 

3 Luke iv. 14, 15. * Verses 14b, 15. 



WHEN DID JESUS BEGIN HIS MINISTRY? 3 

monly recognized to be the best historian in the 
New Testament, the writer from whom we 
would expect historical data more than from any 
other. It is contrary to this characteristic that 
he should omit such a definite statement as that 
given in Mark with reference to John the Bap- 
tist, if he regarded it as a correct historical state- 
ment. We are compelled to the opinion that 
Luke did not think the ministry of Jesus in 
Galilee began subsequent to the arrest of John 
the Baptist. In this he is sustained by the 
Gospel of John, 1 which gives a ministry of Jesus 
in Galilee and Judsea prior to the arrest of John, 
and gives another motive for departing into 
Galilee a second time. This is the statement: 
" When therefore the Lord knew how that the 
Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and 
baptizing more disciples than John, . . . he 
left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee? 

On the surface of the statements of the Gos- 
pels there are grave discrepancies in which Mark 
and Matthew, on the one side, seem to date the 
beginning of the Galilean ministry subsequent to 
the arrest of the Baptist, while Luke and John 
do not ; the latter asserting a ministry in Galilee 

1 John 2, 3. 2 John iv. 1-3. 



4 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

prior to that event. Those harmonists who 
regard the Gospel of John as unhistorical, build 
on the statement of Mark and make the Galilean 
ministry begin in fact after the arrest of the 
Baptist, without giving the silence of Luke its 
due value. Those who accept the historicity of 
the Gospel of John endeavor to arrange an 
earlier Galilean ministry, so far as the statements 
of that Gospel are concerned ; but put all the 
Synoptic material subsequent to the arrest of 
the Baptist. This does not, however, escape the 
difficulty, but only makes the discrepancy more 
glaring. If we build on the statement of Luke, 
there is no reason why we should not put a con- 
siderable amount of the Synoptic material before 
the arrest of the Baptist. If the statement of 
Mark is invalid as to the ministry reported by 
the Gospel of John, it is no less invalid as to the 
Galilean ministry of Luke's report, and should be 
no barrier to the consideration of any evidence 
that may lead to a larger Galilean ministry before 
the arrest of the Baptist, even to the inclusion of 
a considerable amount of material given by Mark 
himself subsequent to his statement. It has 
been a serious mistake to make this statement of 
Mark the key to the early ministry of our Lord. 
It is impossible to make any satisfactory har- 






WHEN DID JESUS BEGIN HIS MINISTRY? 5 

mony of the Gospels on that basis. It is much 
safer to build on the statement of Luke. 

There are several possible explanations of the 
relation of Luke's statement to that of Mark. 
The statement of Mark was before Luke in its 
present form, and he either (1) rejected it as un- 
historical, or (2) interpreted it as not referring 
to the real beginning of the Galilean ministry. 
(3) Having related the arrest of John, 1 he saw 
no reason to refer to it again here. (4) The 
statement of Mark in its present form is not that 
of the original Mark which Luke used, but the 
reference to the Baptist is one of the additions 
made to the primitive Gospel. We shall con- 
sider these in the inverse order. 

It is recognized by all critics that the Greek 
canonical Mark has some material which was 
not in the original Mark at the basis of the Gos- 
pels. How much this material may be, and 
what in particular may be regarded as additional, 
depends upon careful criticism. Certainly there 
is no evidence that Luke had this statement as 
to John the Baptist before him, or that the 
author of the Gospel of John knew of it. Did 
Matthew's Gospel build on the present text of 

1 Luke iii. 19. 



6 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

Mark? This is possible, but by no means cer- 
tain. It is difficult to see why Matthew should 
change the statement of the fact in Mark to the 
hearing about it. The structure of the sentence 
is quite different in Matthew from Mark, al- 
though, apart from the addition of hearing, both 
might be regarded as translations of a common 
Hebrew original. It is altogether probable that 
" the gospel of God" and " and believe in the gos- 
pel " of Mark are additions to the original Mark. 
They are not in Matthew. The original Gospel 
gave only "preaching and saying, The kingdom 
of God is at hand: repent ye" Resch thinks 
that the previous clause, " the time is fulfilled " 
was there also. That is quite possible. In any 
case, the Greek Mark has at least two clauses of 
additions to the original Hebrew Gospel, and if 
so, 1 why not also in the reference to John's ar- 
rest ? The most that can be said therefore is 
that it is not certain whether the clause, " after 
that John was delivered up" was in the original 
Mark or not. 

If it were in the original Mark how could 
Luke the historian destroy its historical impor- 
tance by omitting it here and giving the arrest of 



1 Mark i. 1 4b, 1 5. 



WHEN DID JESUS BEGIN HIS MINISTRY? 7 

John a topical order in the previous chapter ? 
The question then remains, was it designed to 
state the actual beginning of the Galilean minis- 
try, and if so, was it so understood by Luke ? 
The statement is in the protasis of a temporal 
clause, whose apodosis is a general statement as 
to the substance of the preaching of Jesus in 
Galilee, namely, the proclamation of the advent 
of the kingdom of God and the call to repent- 
ance, which was also essentially the message of 
the Baptist. This is as much as to say that 
after the arrest of John the Baptist, Jesus went 
into Galilee to preach the same message that the 
Baptist had preached. It does not necessarily 
imply that Jesus did not teach or work miracles 
before the arrest of John, unless we suppose that 
this was designed as a comprehensive statement 
of His entire work. But that opinion cannot be 
sustained. The statement might be interpreted 
as a general introductory statement with refer- 
ence to His ministry in Galilee as a whole, with- 
out the necessary implication that all the events 
mentioned subsequently, even in Mark, actually 
followed the arrest of the Baptist ; unless we in- 
sist upon strict chronological order for all the 
material of this Gospel. But the modern view, 
that the order of M ark is the norm for the life of 



8 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

Jesus, has been so shattered by recent criticism, 
that it can no longer be regarded as a decisive 
test in any question. In fact, none of the Gos- 
pels can be relied upon for chronological order. 
They are all dominated by didactic considera- 
tions, which make the topical order prevail over 
the chronological. The ambiguity of the sen- 
tence in Mark involving the possibility that it 
might be interpreted as making the ministry of 
Jesus in Galilee begin with the arrest of the 
Baptist, would be a sufficient motive for Luke 
to omit it. 

Matthew's statement is : " From that time (de- 
fined not only by the arrest of the Baptist and 
Jesus' withdrawal to Galilee, but also by the 
leaving Nazareth to dwell in Capernaum) began 
Jesus to preach, and to say, Repent ye ; for the 
kingdom of heaven is at hand." This represents 
that there was a real beginning, not simply with 
the arrest of the Baptist, but in connection with 
this removal to Capernaum after the arrest of the 
Baptist. If we could distinguish between the 
ministry of preaching the kingdom and an earlier 
ministry of teaching and miracle-working, then 
this would be a second stage in the Galilean 
ministry of Jesus, which would by no means 
exclude an earlier ministry of a simpler kind. 



WHEN DID JESUS BEGIN HIS MINISTRY? 9 

There are reasons for regarding this distinction 
as in a measure correct, although it is not clear 
in fact to any of the evangelists. Prior to the 
death of the Baptist, Jesus naturally was in his 
shadow. The Baptist was in the public eye the 
principal ; Jesus appeared rather as his most 
prominent disciple. It might well be, therefore, 
that Mark, and even his authority, Peter, con- 
ceived of the earlier ministry of Jesus as intro- 
ductory and relatively unimportant, and that 
His own real independent ministry began after 
the death of the Baptist. At all events, there 
is a dilemma, so far as I can see, for those who 
regard the statements of John 2-3 as historical. 
They must either give these statements of Mark 
some such explanation as those suggested above, 
or else regard the reference to the arrest of John 
in this connection as unhistorical. We should 
not shrink from this latter alternative, if the 
other could not be sustained. 1 

The story of Luke is intrinsically most proba- 
ble. The baptism by the Divine Spirit was im- 



1 It is noteworthy that Tatian, the earliest harmonist of 
the Gospels, does not hesitate to ignore this statement of 
Mark. This fact had escaped my attention until after I had 
made up my mind on the subject. I was gratified to be sus- 
tained by so early and so great an authority. 



10 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

mediately followed by an ecstatic condition of 
fasting in the wilderness, at the conclusion of 
which Jesus endures the great temptation. Re- 
turning from the wilderness, He goes under the 
power of the Spirit to undertake His ministry in 
Galilee. 

The statements of the Gospel of John are en- 
tirely harmonious with this. It was natural that 
on His way to Galilee He should stop at the Jor- 
dan side to revisit the one who had baptized Him 
and given Him the anointing for His ministry. 

The recognition of His Messiahship by the 
Baptist, and the transfer of two of his disciples, 
Andrew and probably John, to Jesus, and the 
call of Philip the next day, are altogether in 
place. With these three disciples He attends a 
marriage feast at Cana of Galilee on the third 
day afterward, and then goes down to Caper- 
naum. 1 The naming of Peter 2 and the call of 
Nathanael 3 were evidently inserted for topical 
reasons. They belong to a much later date, as 
I have shown elsewhere. 4 



1 John i. 29-ii. 12. f John i. 41, 42. 

8 John i. 45-51. 

4 General Introduction to the Study of Holy Scripture, pp. 
514 seq. The Apostolic Commission, Art. i. in Studies in Honor 
of B. L. Gildersleeve. 



WHEN DID JESUS BEGIN HIS MINISTRY? 11 

We have now to consider the material of the 
Galilean ministry given by the Synoptists subse- 
quent to the statements considered above. So 
far as Luke is concerned, there is no reason why 
all of this should be subsequent to the arrest of 
the Baptist. We have seen that the statements 
of Mark and Matthew should not compel us to 
that opinion. Luke gives first of all in the Gal- 
ilean ministry Jesus' rejection at Nazareth. 1 But 
this is only a variation of the story of His rejec- 
tion given in Mark and Matthew 2 at a much 
later date. Jesus could not have challenged His 
townsmen to accept Him as Messiah so early in 
His ministry. Luke placed this crisis at Naza- 
reth at the beginning of the Galilean ministry for 
topical reasons. We should not hesitate to place 
it later, as do Mark and Matthew. 

The call of the four fishermen comes first in 
Mark, 3 and it fits on appropriately to the calls 
mentioned in John. This is followed by the 
Sabbath day in Capernaum, 4 and a tour of teach- 
ing and miracle-working in Galilee. 5 The Syn- 
optists differ slightly in the order of these events. 



1 Luke iv. 16-30. * Mark vi. l-6a. ; Matt. xiii. 54-58. 

3 Mark i. 16-20; Matt. iv. 18-22; Luke v. 1-11. 

4 Mark i. 21-34; Matt. viii. 14-17; Luke iv. 31-41. 

5 Mark i. 35-45; Matt. iv. 23, viii. 1-4; Luke iv. 42-v. 16. 



12 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

But all give them at this time. Then comes a 
second Sabbath in Capernaum. 1 This is followed 
by the call of Matthew, making the sixth disci- 
ple. 2 All this material seems to belong to the 
earlier Galilean ministry, before the arrest of the 
Baptist. 

The next item in the Synoptists 3 is of some 
importance, because it is related in some way to 
the narrative of John. 4 The words of Jesus ad- 
dressed to the disciples of the Baptist with refer- 
ence to fasting are : " Can the sons of the bride- 
chamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them ? 
as long as they have the bridegroom with them, 
they cannot fast. But the days will come, when 
the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, 
and then will they fast in that day. " 5 These words 
seem to imply the word of the Baptist himself : 
" He that hath the bride is the bridegroom : but 
the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and 
heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bride- 
groom! s voice : this my joy therefore is fulfilled. 
He must increase, but I must decrease." 6 

Jesus justifies Himself and His disciples over 



1 Mark ii. 1-12; Matt. ix. 1-8; Luke v. 17-26. 

2 Mark ii. 13-17; Matt. ix. 9-13; Luke v. 27-32. 

3 Mark ii. 18-22; Matt. ix. 14-17; Luke v. 33-39- 

4 John iii. 22-30. 5 Mark ii. 1 9, 20. 6 John iii. 29, 30. 



WHEN DID JESUS BEGIN HIS MINISTRY? 13 

against the disciples of the Baptist by using the 
very figure of speech with reference to Himself 
that the Baptist had used. The discussion be- 
tween the disciples of Jesus and the disciples of 
the Baptist as to fasting implies the same essen- 
tial situation as the discussion as to purifying. 
Both imply that Jesus was followed by disciples. 
The disciples present at this time 1 can hardly be 
explained, unless we suppose that at least several 
had been previously called. It seems altogether 
probable, therefore, that Jesus soon after the 
call of Matthew departed from Galilee to Ju- 
dsea, and came into connection with the Baptist 
again, 2 and that in the same region the discus- 
sion about fasting took place, as well as that 
about purification. 

The next incident given by Mark 3 and by 
Luke, 4 although given by Matthew at a later 
date, 5 is doubtless in its place in Mark. It gives 
additional evidence of great importance. The 
disciples on a sabbath day, passing through the 
fields of ripe grain, pluck some of the ears and 
rub out the grains and eat them. The ripe grain 
was still uncut. Leviticus 6 gives the law that 

1 John iii. 22. 2 John iii. 22-36. 

3 Mark ii. 23-28. * Luke vi. 1-5. 

5 Matt. xii. 1-8. 6 Lev. xxiii. 5-15. 



14 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

the first-fruits of the barley harvest must be pre- 
sented as an Omer offering on the morrow after 
the first great sabbath, that is, on the second 
day of unleavened bread. Prior to this it was 
unlawful to cut the grain or to eat of it. "And 
ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor 
fresh ears, until this self-same day" 1 The dis- 
ciples of Jesus would certainly obey this law, 
however far they may have been from the Phari- 
saic excesses in holding that rubbing grain on 
the hands was labor, and so a violation of the 
sabbath. The wheat harvest was two or three 
weeks later. We must therefore conclude that 
this incident was subsequent to the Passover, 
and not distant from it. In the text of Luke, 
iv aafifiaTO) is followed in most early codices \ 
by SevTeponpcoTcp, and this is accepted by Tisch- 
endorf and most critical authorities, although re- 
jected by Westcott and Hort, Weiss, 3 and many 
others. It is a difficult reading, whose omis- 
sion is easier to explain than its insertion. 
Whether it was original or a later explanatory 
addition, it is still important because it defines 
that sabbath. It seems to be the sabbath after 



1 Lev. xxiii. 14. ! ACDEHK, etc. 

3 These follow too closely B X. 



WHEN DID JESUS BEGIN HIS MINISTRY? 15 

the Omer offering, and therefore Jesus and His 
disciples were on their way from Jerusalem to 
Galilee, having just left Jerusalem immediately 
after the conclusion of Passover. If this be so, 
then all the events thus far considered, except 
the last, were prior to the first Passover which 
Jesus spent with His disciples in Jerusalem. 
This second return to Galilee would then cor- 
respond with that mentioned in John 1 the mo- 
tive of which was the opposition of the Pharisees 
of Judsea, due to the wonderful success of Jesus 
in winning disciples even beyond that of the 
Baptist. Jesus, for prudential reasons, would 
avoid a premature conflict with the Pharisees 
of Jerusalem. There is no sufficient reason to 
doubt this statement, although it is prefixed to 
the story of the journey through Samaria, which 
must be assigned to a much later time in the 
life of Jesus. 2 

The Gospel of John does not mention the 
arrest of the Baptist at this stage, and it is prob- 
able that it had not yet happened when Jesus 
departed for Galilee, but that it occurred so soon 
afterward that it might be assigned by Matthew 
and Mark as a motive for the beginning of the 

1 John iv. 1-3. 2 See p. 45. 



16 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

preaching of the repentance and the near advent 
of the kingdom of God. 

If now we look back over the incidents thus 
far considered as prior to this, the first Passover 
of Jesus' ministry, we may conclude that the first 
meeting of Jesus with the Baptist was due to 
His journey from Galilee to Jerusalem to keep 
the Feast of Tabernacles, and that it was on His 
return from this feast that He went alone to the 
Baptist to be baptized by him in the Jordan. 
The first stage of the ministry of Jesus, there- 
fore, was between Tabernacles and Passover, and 
this first Passover spent by Jesus and His disci- 
ples in Jerusalem marks essentially the boundary 
between the preparatory work of the Baptist and 
the ministry of Jesus. The work of Jesus up 
to this time was a preparatory work under the 
shadow of the Baptist, and therefore not consid- 
ered by Mark and his authority, St. Peter, as the 
real beginning of the ministry of Jesus. 



II 

JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST 

ACCORDING to Luke, Jesus and John the 
Baptist were near relations through their 
mothers, Mary and Elizabeth. Although Eliza- 
beth brought up her son in a city in the hill 
country of Judah, and Jesus was brought up in 
the distant Nazareth of Galilee, it is altogether 
probable that other visits were made by Mary to 
Elizabeth than that reported in Luke ; and that 
at such visits Jesus and John became acquaint- 
ed as boys. The statement of Luke, 1 that the 
residence of Elizabeth was in a city of Judah in 
the hill country, is too indefinite to be accurate. 
The conjecture of Reland supported by Robin- 
son, that Judah stands for Juttah, a city of the 
priests south of Hebron, 2 is probably correct. 
Moreover, Zacharias must have attended the 
feasts at Jerusalem with his family, and twice in 
the year he served there in his course as priest in 
the temple. The visits of Jesus with His par- 



1 Luke i. 39. * Josh. xv. 55, xxi. 16. 



18 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

ents to the feasts gave frequent opportunity for 
renewing the acquaintance of Jesus and John 
during the eighteen years subsequent to Jesus' 
first visit to Jerusalem prior to the beginning of 
His ministry. It is true that John the Baptist 
is reported as saying : " / knew him not ; " 1 
but the context indicates that this knowledge 
was not that of personal acquaintance, but of 
recognition of His special calling as Messiah. 

Jesus and the Baptist first came into contact 
in a public way when Jesus went to him for 
baptism. At this time John, guided by the the- 
ophany which he received, recognizes Jesus as 
the One greater than himself whom he had 
heralded. 2 

Jesus immediately after His Baptism goes 
for forty days, in the ecstatic state, into the wil- 
derness, and undergoes His temptation; 3 after 
which He visits the Baptist on His way to Gali- 
lee and is recognized by him as his Master. Two 
of the Baptist's disciples join Jesus on the fol- 
lowing day, and on the third day Jesus returns 
to Galilee. 4 

The next meeting of John and Jesus was at 



1 John i. 31. 2 John i. 32-34. 

3 Mark i. 12, 13. 4 John i. 29-43. 



JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST 19 

iEnon, near Salim, in the valley of the Jordan. 
Jesus in the meantime had gathered about Him 
a band of disciples. Jesus and these disciples 
teach, make disciples, and baptize alongside of 
John and his disciples. The disciples of the 
Baptist were disturbed by this apparent rivalry 
all the more that Jesus' success was greater than 
that of their master. 1 Accordingly disputes 
arose respecting purifications 2 and fasting. 3 But 
the Baptist distinctly recognized and stated to 
his disciples that Jesus must increase while he 
himself decreased. 4 

The motive for the departure of Jesus to 
Galilee, the second time, as given in John, 5 was 
the opposition of the Pharisees to Him because 
of His greater success in winning disciples than 
John. This naturally implies that Jesus left for 
Galilee while John was still working. The 
statement of Mark, 6 upon which Matthew 7 is 
based, that He withdrew into Galilee after the 
arrest of John, is, as we have seen, 8 either incor- 
rect, or was not meant to exclude an intro- 
ductory Galilean ministry. At all events the 



1 John iii. 22-23, 26, iv. 1-2. 2 John iii. 25. 

3 Mark ii. 1 8-22. 4 John iii. 25-30. 

5 John iv. 1. 6 Mark i. 14. 

1 Matt. iv. 1 2. 8 See pp. 1 seq. 



20 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

arrest of the Baptist could not have been long 
after this second departure of Jesus into Galilee 
and probably it was soon afterward. 

The arrest of the Baptist is stated in Mark 1 
and Matthew 2 incidentally in connection with 
their account of the opening of the Galilean 
ministry. But the Gospels give a fuller account 
at a much later date, incidentally again, as pre- 
paratory to the narrative of the martyrdom of 
the Baptist. 3 Luke, however, mentions the im- 
prisonment as supplementary to an account of 
his work. 4 The imprisonment is also mentioned 
incidentally in Matthew, 5 in connection with 
the message of the Baptist to Jesus. 

There are three important events which are in 
chronological succession in the closing career of 
the Baptist: (1) His imprisonment, (2) His 
message to Jesus, (3) His death. These give 
us a frame on which we may construct a large 
part of the Galilean ministry of Jesus. 

1. The arrest and imprisonment of the Bap- 
tist were due to his prophetic denunciation of 
Herod for his illegal marriage with Herodias his 
brother's wife. It is improbable that this could 

1 Mark i. 14. 2 Matt. iv. 12. 

3 Mark vi. 17, 18 ; Matt. xiv. 3-5. * Luke iii. 19, 20. 

5 Matt. xi. 2. 



JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST 21 

have occurred while Jesus was working with 
him; otherwise Jesus also would have been 
under suspicion by Herod and his satellites. It 
is probable, therefore, that it did not occur until 
after Jesus had departed into Galilee. But it 
was probably soon after Jesus arrived in Galilee. 
2. The Baptist while in prison sends a mes- 
sage to Jesus through two of his disciples. This 
message is not given in Mark but in Matthew 1 
and Luke. 2 The message was: "Art Thou he 
that cometh, or look we for another?" This does 
not imply any doubt in the Baptist's mind as to 
the fact that Jesus was the One he had already 
proclaimed him to be, as the One greater than 
himself whose advent it was his privilege to 
herald. But it implied a doubt whether Jesus 
in all respects fulfilled the ideal of his prediction. 
This was due to the complexity of the Messianic 
ideals of the Old Testament, 3 and also to the fact 
that the Baptist had heralded the advent of God 
in a day of judgment. He could not see his way 
through the mazes of prophetic ideals. Jesus in 
His reply tells these disciples of the Baptist to 
report what they have seen and heard. 



1 Matt. xi. 2-19. 2 Luke vii. 18-35. 

8 The Incarnation of the Lord, pp. 172 seq. 



22 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

" The blind receive their sight ; 
The lame walk ; 
The lepers are cleansed ; 
The deaf hear ; 
The dead are raised up ; 

The poor have good tidings preached to them ; 
Blessed is he, whosoever shall find none occasion of stumbling 
in me." 

This logion is practically identical in both 
reports and probably comes from the Logia of 
Matthew. It implies therefore a considerable 
amount of miracle-working and preaching by 
Jesus. Indeed it was the report of this, that 
came to the Baptist either by rumor or from 
the testimony of his disciples, or from both, 
which was the occasion of the message. We 
may safely put the following incidents in the 
second Galilean ministry prior to the message of 
the Baptist: 

(1.) The healing of the man with the withered 
hand on a sabbath in the synagogue which im- 
mediately follows, in the three Synoptists, 1 the 
story of the plucking of the ears of grain on the 
sabbath. Matthew puts both of these incidents 
later, after the sending forth of the Twelve. 
But Matthew T 's order is evidently not historical. 



1 Mark iii. 1-6 ; Matt. xii. 9-14 ; Luke vi. 6-11. 



JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST 23 

The order of the other Synoptists is also topical. 
The intense hostility of the Pharisees in con- 
nection with this healing is too early in the 
development of the conflict of Jesus with them. 
This event belongs at the close of this visit to 
Galilee, just before going to the feast of Pen- 
tecost. For topical reasons it is given out of 
place even in Mark. 

(2.) The preaching by the seashore 1 comes 
next; then, 

(3.) The appointment of the Twelve. 2 

(4.) The Sermon on the Mount is really, ac- 
cording to Luke, the discourse of Consecration 
of the Twelve. 3 This is enlarged in Matthew 
v.-vii., by the addition of a great amount of ma- 
terial selected from logia given on many differ- 
ent occasions, according to Luke. 

(5.) The healing of the Centurion's servant in 
Capernaum soon follows. 4 This is doubtless the 
same as the similar story of John. 5 It tells us 
that Jesus was at Cana when the nobleman 
sent to Him to come to Capernaum, which 
implies a work in Cana after the Sermon on the 
Mount, on the way to Capernaum. 



1 Mark iii. 7-12. 2 Mark iii. 13-1 9a; Luke vi. 12-19- 

3 Luke vi. 20-49. * Luke vii. 1-10; Matt. viii. 5-13. 

5 John iv. 46-54. 



24 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

(6.) Luke reports the raising of the widow's 
son at Nain, 1 prior to the message. 

The narratives also imply an extended tour, 
in which Jesus was followed by multitudes, and 
during which He wrought many miracles. 

Are these incidents sufficient to account for 
the words of His message to the Baptist? A 
leper was healed on His first tour. 2 A dead boy 
was raised in the second tour. 3 But thus far 
there has been no report of healing the blind, 
lame, or deaf. Are we justified in including 
these under the generic terms for healings given 
in the previous narrative ? — or, must we put this 
message of the Baptist later, after such miracles 
are reported? — or, if we cannot take either of 
these alternatives, are we to suppose this logion 
was not exactly what Jesus said, but a summing 
up of His miracle-working uttered later and 
attached by the evangelist here for topical rea- 
sons? Luke tells us: "In that hour he cured 
many of diseases and plagues and evil spirits; 
and on many that were blind he bestowed sight." 4 
But this is not in Matthew and was not derived 
from the Logia, and may be regarded as an 



1 Luke vii. 11-17. 2 Mark i. 40-45. 

3 Luke vii. 11-17. 4 Luke vii. 21. 



JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST 25 

explanatory addition of Luke. In case the 
logion was a topical addition to the narrative, 
the answer of Jesus to the Baptist would be 
simply His words to the two disciples : " Go 
your way, and tell John what things ye have 
seen and heard" 1 This on the whole, seems 
most probable under all the circumstances of 
the case. If the view taken in another chapter 
be correct 2 that all this took place between 
Passover and Pentecost, and that John the Bap- 
tist's arrest took place soon after Passover, then 
the message must have been sent between thirty 
and forty days after the arrest of John. 

3. The final catastrophe of the beheading of 
the Baptist is reported in the three Synoptists. 3 
This is given incidentally, some time after its oc- 
currence, in connection with Herod's alarm lest 
Jesus might be John the Baptist risen from the 
dead. The story is given by the three Synoptists 
immediately before the Feeding of the multitude. 
Mark and Luke let it immediately follow the 
Commission of the Twelve. But Matthew in- 
serts a considerable amount of the ministry of 
Jesus between the Commission and this story, all 



1 Luke vii. 22 ; Matt. xi. 4. * See pp. 15, 52. 

3 Mark vi. 14-29 I Matt. xiv. 1-12 ; cf. Luke ix. 7-9. 



26 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

of which is out of place. There is a great gap 
here in the narrative of Mark, during the ab- 
sence of the Twelve, which we shall consider 
later on. But at this point we must ask, what, 
then, was the place of the death of the Baptist 
in relation to the ministry of Jesus ? It is prob- 
able that there was a real connection between 
the Commission of the Twelve and the death of 
the Baptist. The putting of the Baptist to death 
at the solicitation of Herodias, which Herod 
commanded with great reluctance, with many 
scruples, and much anxiety, doubtless made him 
very sensitive to public opinions and supersti- 
tions. When the miracle-working and preaching 
of Jesus was reported to him soon afterward, he 
saw that Jesus was carrying on the work of the 
Baptist with greater vigor and success, and he 
feared that John the Baptist had risen from the 
dead in the person of Jesus. 

This put the work of Jesus and Jesus Him- 
self in great peril from Herod and his court. 
This, therefore, was a reason why Jesus should 
give over His mission in Galilee to the Twelve, 
and retire Himself to another and safer field of 
labor. If this be so, it is probable that the 
death of John occurred shortly before the Com- 
mission of the Twelve. We may, therefore, put 



JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST 27 

the most of the remaining Galilean ministry of 
Jesus prior to the death of the Baptist. 

John v. reports a journey of Jesus to Jerusa- 
lem at a feast. If this was Pentecost, as we 
shall show later on, 1 it came a few days after the 
message of the Baptist to Jesus. In His dis- 
course at this feast Jesus said to the Pharisees — 
" Ye have sent unto John, and he hath borne wit- 
ness unto the truth. . . . He was the lamp that 
burneth and shineth ; and ye were willing to re- 
joice for a season in his light." 2 Does this imply 
that the Baptist was still alive or that he was 
already dead ? These words do not suggest the 
death of the Baptist. It seems probable that if 
the Baptist had already suffered death, it would 
have appeared in a reference to him at this 
time. It is most natural to interpret these 
words as referring to the testimony of one still 
living, but whose career had diminished in im- 
portance. 

John 3 states that after the Feast of Dedica- 
tion Jesus went into Peraea "into the place 
where John was at the first baptizing ; and there 
he abode. And many came unto him; and they 
said, John indeed did no sign, but all things what- 



1 See p. 52. * John v. 33-35. 3 John x. 40-41 



28 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

soever John spake of this man were true" 1 This 
speaks of John as if he were no longer living. 
The death of John occurred, therefore, in all 
probability between Pentecost and Dedication. 
If the view taken in another chapter is correct, 2 
it occurred between Pentecost and Tabernacles. 
If, as we suppose, John the Baptist was arrested 
soon after Passover, he was put to death on the 
subsequent birthday of Herod, a little before 
Tabernacles of the same year. It is not likely 
that his enemies would allow him to live any 
longer than they could help. 

Soon after the message of the Baptist Jesus 
goes to the Feast of Pentecost, and then returns 
for His third mission to Galilee. The earlier in- 
cidents are mentioned by Luke alone, namely: 

(1) His anointing by a penitent woman in the 
house of Simon. 3 

(2) He made a tour through Galilee accom- 
panied by several women as well as His other 
disciples. 4 

(3) The three Synoptists report the anxiety 
of His family respecting Him, in connection with 
which He proclaims the true kinship of the 



1 John x. 22. 2 See p. 43. 

* Luke vii. 36-50. 4 Luke viii. 1-3. 



JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST 29 

family of God. 1 Mark inserts here, 2 sustained 
by Matthew, 3 material given by Luke 4 at a later 
and better date. Probably this material was in- 
serted for topical reasons, and may be an addi- 
tion to the original Mark. It is chiefly com- 
posed of logia. 

(4) Next come the parables of the Kingdom 
spoken at the seaside, 5 to which Matthew adds a 
number of other parables of the Kingdom spoken 
at other times. 6 

(5) Jesus then crosses the sea into the country 
of the Gadarenes ; on the way he stills the tem- 
pest, and, arriving on the other side, heals a 
demoniac. 7 

(6) Returning to the Galilean side of the sea, 
Jesus raises Jairus' daughter from the dead, and 
cures a woman from an issue of blood. 8 

(7) He then makes a final tour in Galilee, 9 
which may correspond with the one mentioned 
in Luke, 10 the latter beginning the narrative with 



1 Markiii. 1 9b-2 1,3 1-35 ; Matt. xii. 46-50 ; Luke viii. 8-19- 

2 Mark iii. 22-30. 3 Matt. xii. 22-45. 4 Luke xi. 14-36. 
5 Mark iv. 1-34 ; Luke viii. 4-18. 6 Matt. xiii. 1-53. 

7 Mark iv. 35-41, v. 1-20 ; Luke viii. 22-39 ; Matt. viii. 
22-34. 

8 Mark v. 21-43 ; Matt. ix. 18-26 ; Luke viii. 40-56. 

9 Mark vi. 6 ; Matt. ix. 35. 10 Luke viii. 1-3. 



30 



NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 



the general statement, the former concluding 
with the general statement. 

Jesus now hears of the death of the Baptist 
and the suspicion of Herod relating to himself, 
and He commissions the Twelve to go in pairs 
and carry on his Mission in Galilee, 1 to which 
Matthew 2 adds many logia given by Luke in 
connection with the commission of the Seventy, 
and others belonging to the final Apostolic Com- 



mission. 5 



1 Mark vi. 7-13 ; Luke ix. 1-6. 2 Matt x. 1, 5-xi. 1. 

3 See The Apostolic Commissio?i f Art. i. in Studies in Honor of 
B. L. Gildersleeve. 



Ill 

THE TWELVE AND THE SEVENTY 

THE Gospels of Mark and Matthew give 
the sending forth of the Twelve, the Gos- 
pel of Luke the sending forth of both the Twelve 
and the Seventy. The Gospel of John says 
nothing about either event. It does not men- 
tion the Seventy at all. It mentions the Twelve 
only twice, and even these passages may be 
redactional. But, on the other hand, this Gospel 
gives a group of seven disciples, and mentions 
several names not known to the Synoptists. 
These differences raise several difficult questions. 
The story of Mark 1 is simple. The sending 
forth of the Twelve in pairs to preach repent- 
ance and work miracles is given without explicit 
motive. The story of the death of John the 
Baptist is inserted. 2 Then the return of the 
Twelve is given in connection with the Feeding 
of the multitudes. 3 



1 Mark vi. 7-13. 2 Mark vi. 14-29. 8 Mark vi. 30-46. 



32 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

The story of Luke 1 is evidently based on 
Mark, and gives nothing additional of any im- 
portance. But Luke also gives an account of 
the sending forth of the Seventy 2 and their 
return 3 in connection with a large amount of 
material usually supposed to belong to the 
Perasan ministry, unknown for the most part to 
Matthew and Mark, and evidently derived from 
a source unknown to these Evangelists. 

A large amount of the material, in the form 
of logia, spoken by Jesus in connection with the 
sending forth and the return of the Seventy, is 
given by Matthew in connection with the mission 
and return of the Twelve. 4 Between these is 
inserted the sending of the disciples of the 
Baptist to Jesus, 5 given by Luke elsewhere. In 
fact, as I have shown, Matthew heaps up in this 
section a number of logia connected with the 
ministry of the disciples, not only those uttered 
by Jesus according to Luke on these two dif- 
ferent occasions, but also some belonging to the 
final commission of the Twelve before His de- 
parture from the world to the Father. 6 Many 



1 Luke ix. 1-6. 2 Luke x. 1-1 6. 3 Luke x. 17-24. 

4 Matt. x. 1-xi. 1, and xi. 20-27. 5 Matt. xi. 2-19. 

6 The Apostolic Commission, Art. i. in Studies in Honor of B. 
L. Gilders/eeve. 



THE TWELVE AND THE SEVENTY 33 

of the logia scattered through those chapters of 
Luke which are peculiar to him, are found in 
Matthew attached to his version of the Sermon 
on the Mount, the Woes of the Pharisees, and 
the Eschatological Discourse, all derived from 
the Logia of Matthew by our Gospels of Mat- 
thew and Luke, notwithstanding this difference 
in the grouping of the material. 

There is no sufficient reason why we should 
doubt the mission of this second group of 
disciples by Jesus. It is altogether probable 
that the Twelve were commissioned for a 
Galilean ministry, the Seventy for a Pereean 
and Judsean ministry. It is a common opinion 
that Jesus was accompanied by the Twelve 
throughout His ministry, and that their absence 
from Him was quite brief. This opinion is due 
doubtless to the fact that the return from their 
mission is given in the narrative so close to the 
sending forth. But this, as in the case of the 
Seventy also, was due to topical reasons and by 
no means implies the close proximity in time of 
the sending and the return. This mission, if 
it amounted to anything, must have continued 
several weeks at least. 

There are in the Gospels of Matthew and 
Mark many instances of calls to a special follow- 



34 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

ing of Jesus connected with the abandonment of 
all things else, some accepted, others rejected — 
calls which imply a larger circle of special 
disciples than the Twelve, and which, therefore, 
incidentally sustain another and a larger group 
of ministers, such as the Seventy of Luke. Only 
thus can we get a basis in the life of Jesus 
for the two groups of the apostolic history, the 
Twelve and the larger group of prophets such 
as Barnabas, Ananias, Joseph, and Matthias, the 
latter of whom was assigned the place of Judas 
in the group of the Twelve. The term apostle 
was not used by Jesus, but was first given 
at Antioch in connection with the mission of 
Barnabas and Paul, and was a comprehensive 
term which was used indifferently for both of 
these groups. 

A careful study of the Gospels shows us that 
there was indeed a natural and simple develop- 
ment in the calling, training, and sending forth 
of the ministry by Jesus during His lifetime. 
The Synoptic narrative tells of the call of the 
four fishermen and of Matthew. The narrative 
of John tells us of the call of Andrew and Simon, 
Philip and Nathanael, and a fifth, probably John. 
Nathanael is usually regarded as another name 
for Bartholomew of the Synoptists ; but this is 



THE TWELVE AND THE SEVENTY S5 

by no means certain. How and when the others 
named among the Twelve were called by Jesus 
we are not told. But it was not long before a 
group of Twelve was selected with Peter at the 
head. 1 

The Sermon on the Mount, so called, accord- 
ing to the version of Luke which is nearest to 
the original, was a discourse of consecration. 
Matthew has attached to it a large amount of 
material gathered from the Logia of Matthew, 
given by the other Synoptists on many other 
different occasions. 

After continuing with Jesus as a group of 
Twelve for some considerable time, they were 
sent forth in pairs to conduct missions through- 
out Galilee. At this time Jesus gave them a 
solemn charge. This mission continued until 
shortly before the last journey of Jesus to Jeru- 
salem. 

It is probable that one of these pairs always 
remained with Jesus ; at one time John and 
James, at another Andrew and Peter, at another 
Matthew and Thomas. But the Twelve, as a 
whole, were absent on their mission from this 
time forth until they rejoined Jesus just prior to 



1 Markiii. 13-19; Matt. x. 2-4; Luke vi. 12-19- 



36 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

the Feeding of the multitudes, which was only a 
short time before the Passion of Jesus, and not 
in the midst of His ministry, as is commonly 
supposed. 

In the meanwhile Jesus was attaching other 
disciples to Himself besides the Twelve, by special 
calls, and preparing them for a special ministry. 
Before setting forth upon His Persean ministry, 
He organizes Seventy of these in a group and 
sends them forth in pairs to prepare the way 
before Him in Persea and in Judsea. These also 
return to Him, probably on His last passage along 
the border of Peraaa on His way to Jerusalem. 

The mission of the Seventy is not reported in 
Mark because that Gospel depends upon the 
preaching of Peter, and Peter seems to have 
limited his testimony to that which he himself 
had seen and heard. He was not present during 
the Persean and Judasan ministry of .Luke and 
John, and therefore makes no report of it, or of 
the work of the Seventy with which he had 
nothing to do. 

The Gospel of Matthew is based on Mark and 
the Logia of Matthew, which latter 1 was simply 



1 See my articles, Expository Times, June, July, August, 
November, 1897. 



THE TWELVE AND THE SEVENTY 37 

a collection of the wisdom of Jesus with occa- 
sional introductory incidents, but without his- 
torical narrative. These the author of our Gospel 
of Matthew arranged as best he could in groups 
on the basis of Mark's narrative. He had no 
knowledge of the special sources used by Luke 
and John, or of the historical material given in 
those sources. 

If the order in the development of the ministry 
given above is correct, we have an important 
help for the arrangement of the material relating 
to the life of Jesus. 

1. The calling of disciples to follow Jesus in a 
life involving an abandonment of all else. 

2. The selection of Twelve of these into a 
special group, and their solemn setting apart. 

3. The mission of these Twelve to Galilee. 

4. The selection of a larger group of Seventy, 
and their consecration. 

5. The mission of the Seventy to Persea and 
Judaea. 

6. The return of the Twelve near Bethsaida in 
order to accompany Jesus to His last Passover. 

7. The return of the Seventy on His last jour- 
ney along the border of Persea to Jerusalem. 

8. The final commission of the apostolic min- 
istry. 



38 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

If now we take this as a framework for the 
material given in the Gospels, it is evident that 
the usual arrangement of the harmonists is in- 
correct. 

The material Mark vi. 30-ix.=Matt. xiv. 13- 
xviii. = Luke ix. 10-50 does not precede Luke 
x.-xviii. 14, but follows it. Luke xviii. 15-34 
coincides with Mark x. 13-34. The material 
inserted here in Luke between ix. 50 and xviii. 15 
is material, apart from the logia, derived from 
another source unknown to Mark and Matthew. 
Luke does not mingle the material derived from 
this source with the material derived from Mark, 
but follows Mark essentially as far as ix. 50, only 
changing the order occasionally for topical rea- 
sons, and then gives his new material entirely by 
itself. This new material, apart from the logia, 
belongs for the most part to the Pereean minis- 
try, while Peter was absent from Jesus in Gal- 
ilee. There is no sound reason which compels 
us to place this ministry subsequent to the entire 
Galilean ministry, as the modern harmonists do. 

The situation is similar with the material given 
in John vii. 1-xi. 54. This is based on a source 
unknown to the Synoptists. There is no sound 
reason why it should be placed between Mark 
ix. 50 and Mark x. 2. The single intervening 



THE TWELVE AND THE SEVENTY 39 

verse x. 1 may or may not correspond with Luke 
ix. 51. The passages are not so similar that a 
coincidence is evident. In the former Jesus 
goes into the borders of Jordan and Peraea. In 
the latter he goes steadfastly toward Jerusalem 
through Samaria, which is very different. The 
latter probably corresponds with the journey to 
the Feast of Tabernacles, 1 to which He went up 
secretly through Samaria, the unusual route, to 
avoid the publicity of the usual route by the 
valley of the Jordan. The former probably was 
much later, His last journey on which He cast 
all secrecy and prudence aside, and therefore went 
to Jerusalem by the usual route with all His 
disciples by way of the Jordan, Jericho, and 
Bethany. 

This arrangement of the material gives a bet- 
ter development to the narrative, explains the 
silence of Mark as to the Peraean and Jerusalem 
ministry by the absence of Peter, whose preach- 
ing was the basis of Mark, and puts a new light 
upon many obscure problems. 



1 John vii. 1-13. 



TV 

WHERE WAS JESUS DURING THE ABSENCE OF 
THE TWELVE? 1 

THE sending forth of the Twelve was for 
a mission in Galilee. 2 They went in pairs, 
therefore, in six different circuits. This mission 
must have taken some considerable time ; for it 
contemplates the going from one city to another 
and from house to house, and the sojourning for 
a time in houses and cities, because directions 
are given respecting just these things. All this 
could not have been accomplished in a few days. 
A comprehensive mission seems to have been 
contemplated so as to reach entire Galilee. 

The return is given in close connection with 
the sending. 3 These Evangelists insert accounts 



1 I have asked several eminent New Testament scholars this 
question, but not one of them had thought of it before, or 
could give me an answer. So far as I am aware, the har- 
monists and authors of Lives of Jesus have not considered it. 

2 Mark vi. 7-13 ; Matt. ix. 36-xi. 1 ; Luke ix. 1-6. 

3 Mark vi. 30; Luke ix. 10. 



DURING THE ABSENCE OF THE TWELVE 41 

of the death of John the Baptist, 1 motived by 
the fact that Herod heard of the great work of 
Jesus, and was so disturbed by it that he sup- 
posed that John the Baptist had risen from 
the dead in Jesus. This is given by Matthew 2 
immediately before the Feeding of the multi- 
tude, without any mention of the return of 
the Twelve. That Gospel inserts a considerable 
amount of material here. 

(1) An account of the message of the Baptist 
to Jesus, 3 which is given by Luke at an earlier 
and more probable date. 4 

(2) A number of logia follow, 5 the most of 
which are given by Luke more appropriately in 
connection with the return of the Seventy. 6 

(3) Matthew also gives, before the Feeding of 
the multitudes, various incidents reported by 
Mark and Luke at other dates. 7 



1 Mark vi. 14-29 = Luke ix. 7-9 2 Matt. xiv. 1-12. 

3 Matt. xi. 2-19. * Luke vii. 18-35. 

5 Matt. xi. 20-30. 6 Luke x. 13-24. 

7 (a) Matt. xii. 1-21 = Markii. 23-iii. 12 = Luke vi. 1-1 1 ; 
(b) Matt. xii. 22-50 = Mark iii. 19b-35 — incidents given by 
Luke at two different times, the former (xi. 14-36) at a later 
date, the latter (viii. 19-21) at an earlier date ; (c) Matt. xiii. 
1-53, the parables by the sea = Mark iv. 1-34 = Luke viii. 
4-18 ; and (d) Matt. xiii. 54-58, the rejection at Nazareth = 
Mark vi. 1-6 = Luke iv. 16-30. 



42 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

Mark and Luke make no statement whatever 
as to what Jesus did in the absence of the 
Twelve. But Matthew tells us : 1 " And it came 
to pass, when Jesus had made an end of com- 
manding Ms twelve disciples, he departed thence 
to teach and preach in their cities." This is a 
general statement, which this Gospel adds to 
the Markan source, and is indeed most proba- 
ble in itself. But it does not tell us where Jesus 
carried on His ministry. It is not probable that 
He reserved a seventh circuit in Galilee to Him- 
self, or that He went with one pair on one of 
these circuits. It is much more probable that 
having divided up Galilee among the Twelve, 
He Himself, either alone or, more likely, with 
one of these pairs, went elsewhere to carry on 
His ministry. The insertion of so many inci- 
dents by Matthew prior to the Feeding of the 
multitudes, in connection with which Mark, fol- 
lowed by Luke, gives the return of the Twelve — 
although Matthew does not mention the return 
at all — yet implies that the author of this Gospel 
supposed there was a considerable ministry of 
Jesus during that interval. Some of these inci- 
dents given by Matthew in this interval really 

1 Matt. xi. l. 



DURING THE ABSENCE OF THE TWELVE 43 

belong there. But Mark's order in most cases 
is to be preferred; in others, that of Luke. 
We must recognize however the effort of the 
author of Matthew to fill up this gap. 

If it is reasonable to suppose that Jesus, dur- 
ing the absence of the Twelve would carry on 
His ministry elsewhere than in Galilee, then we 
have a gap of time in which we may place the 
Jerusalem ministry of the Gospel of John and 
the Pereean ministry of the Gospel of Luke, 
both absent from the Gospel of Mark because 
Peter was on a mission in Galilee all this time. 
And, indeed, this ministry in Jerusalem and 
Pergea fits into this space with the utmost ex- 
actness and nicety. It is evident from Mark 
and Luke that the anxiety of Herod was a real 
peril for the continuance of Jesus' work, and was 
a sufficient motive for giving over His Galilean 
ministry to the Twelve, while He Himself re- 
tired elsewhere. 

Luke, 1 at the beginning of the material derived 
by this Evangelist from another source than 
Mark, tells us that Jesus set His face to go to 
Jerusalem, and that He went by way of Samaria. 
This unusual route to Jerusalem, instead of the 



1 Luke ix. 51-56. 



44 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

usual route by the valley of the Jordan, was 
doubtless because of the peril from Herod and 
the need of a secret journey. The brother pair, 
James and John, accompanied Him on this 
journey to Jerusalem, as is evident from the first 
incident in Samaria, where their names are men- 
tioned and no others. There is no evidence of 
the presence of any others of the Twelve. 

This journey may be put in parallelism with 
the journey described in John. 1 Jesus does not 
go up to the Feast of Tabernacles with His 
brethren in a public way, but in secret; and He 
does not appear in public until the midst of the 
feast. 2 During this feast the visit to Martha 
and Mary in Bethany 3 doubtless occurred. It is 
probable that the Seventy were sent forth from 
Jerusalem on their mission to Perasa and Judaea. 
From Jerusalem Jesus follows in the footsteps 
of the Seventy in a ministry in Peraea, 4 which 
concludes with a journey to Jerusalem. 5 This 
journey seems to correspond with that reported 
in John 6 at the Feast of Dedication, from which 
He returns to Persea. 7 

The ministry in Persea included the incidents 



Johnvii. 2-14. 2 John vii. 10-14. 3 Luke x. 38-42. 

Luke x. 25-37, xi.-xiii. 21. 5 Luke xiii. 22. 

John x. 22-39- 7 John x. 40. 



DURING THE ABSENCE OF THE TWELVE 45 

and teaching mentioned in Luke, 1 for the most 
part at least, although the exact connection of 
the logia is by no means certain. From this 
ministry Jesus is suddenly recalled to Jerusalem 
by the death of Lazarus. 2 The raising of 
Lazarus from the dead excited so great atten- 
tion that Jesus was in great danger from the 
authorities, and He retires to Ephraim on the 
borders of Samaria. 3 

It is probable that the journey northward to 
Galilee through Samaria 4 occurred at this time. 
He was in peril, both from the authorities of 
Jerusalem and also from Herod, and the safest 
journey was just this one. He was on the 
borders of Samaria at Ephraim, and the journey 
through Samaria was the easiest from this place. 
The statement " Say not ye, There are yet four 
months, and then cometh the harvest ? " 5 exactly 
suits this time. Moreover, the explicit statement 
of His Messiahship suits this period of His min- 
istry, and could hardly have come much earlier. 

The order of the material of John is certainly 
not chronological but topical, as Tatian recog- 
nized. 6 At this time John and James alone ol 



1 Luke xiv.— xvii. 10. 2 John xi. 3 John xi. 54. 

4 John iv. 3-43. 5 John iv. 35. 

6 He puts the journey through Samaria after Mark vii. 24-37. 



46 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

the Twelve were with Jesus, and therefore 
John's Gospel tells us of these things and 
Peter's Gospel does not mention them. Indeed, 
these brothers had been with him in Samaria. 
They would be especially valuable to Jesus in 
Jerusalem because of their important acquaint- 
anceship there. 1 They, if any of the Twelve, 
would remain with him during his ministry there, 
and return with him through Samaria to Galilee. 

Arriving in Galilee, Jesus comes at once into 
peril from Herod, and therefore He avoids re- 
newing His ministry in Galilee and hurries 
northward to Tyre and Sidon. 2 It is probable 
that the preaching in Nazareth and His rejection 
there occurred on His way. The Synoptists are 
in disagreement as to the time. 3 It is more ap- 
propriate here because of the explicit statement 
of Jesus' Messiahship with the implication of 
His impending sufferings and the hostile temper 
of the Nazarenes. 4 

Here Mark resumes his narrative, and it is 



1 John xviii. 15-16. 2 Mark vii. 24-30. 

3 Mark vi. 1-6; Matt. xiii. 54-58; Luke iv. 16-30. 

* The logion, John iv. 44, certainly was uttered at Nazareth, 
and suggests that the discourse at Nazareth immediately fol- 
lowed the journey through Samaria. As I shall show later, 
there has been a displacement of the original John here. 
See p. 151. 



DURING THE ABSENCE OF THE TWELVE 47 

probable that Peter and Andrew join Jesus 
at Nazareth for the journey northward, while 
John and James depart. From Phoenicia Jesus 
journeys along the northern borders of Galilee 
to Northern Decapolis, 1 and so to Bethsaida, 
where He is rejoined by the entire Twelve. 2 It 
is significant that the feeding of the four thou- 
sand, which is probably only a variant tradition 
of the feeding of the five thousand, is placed by 
Mark 3 and Matthew 4 after the journey from 
Sidon by way of Decapolis. The feeding of the 
five thousand is reported in John. 5 Andrew and 
Philip, representing two pairs of the Twelve, 
are mentioned as with him. It is also stated 
that " the passover, the feast of the Jews, was 
at hand" 6 which exactly suits this time. The 
harmonists, even Tatian, place this event too 
early, and therefore find it difficult to explain the 
discourse of Jesus in Capernaum, which follows 
just after crossing the sea, 7 which offends many 
of His disciples and brings on the crisis in which 
the Twelve recognize Him distinctly as the 
Messiah. 8 

1 Mark vii. 31. 2 Mark vi. 30 = Luke ix. 10. 

3 Mark viii. 1-9- 4 Matt. xv. 32-38. 

6 John vi. 1-15. 6 John vi. 4. 7 John vi. 16-66. 

8 John vi. 17 states that He crossed to Capernaum; Mark 
vi. 53, Matt. xiv. 34, to the plain of Gennesaret; Matt. 



48 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

This recognition, however, according to the 
Synoptists, does not occur at Capernaum but at 
Ceesarea Philippi, 1 whither they hastened after a 
brief tarry at Bethsaida. 2 These rapid move- 
ments indicate a consciousness of grave peril. 

This is the readj ustment of the order of events 
in the life of Jesus which is required by the 
answer to the question, Where was Jesus during 
the absence of the Twelve ? It solves a number of 
the most difficult problems of the New Testa- 
ment, explains the silence of Mark as to the 
ministry in Pereea and Judaea, and the full report 
of John as to the Jerusalem ministry, and his 
implicit agreement with the full report of Luke 



xv. 39 that He crossed to the borders of Magadan ; Mark 
viii. 10 to the parts of Dalmanutha. Mark vi. 45 states that 
their real destination was Bethsaida. Gennesaret is a general 
term of the plain on the border of which Capernaum was 
situated. Magadan may be another name for Magdala, which 
is on the south side of the plain, as Capernaum is on the 
north. Dalmanutha may be a more precise designation of 
the place, which has not yet been identified. All these 
places were within a few miles of each other. The calm 
after the storm compelled them to seek the nearest land. 

1 Mark viii. 27-30; Matt. xvi. 13-20; Luke ix. 18-21. 

2 It is evident that the original plan of going to Bethsaida 
was carried out because of the healing of the blind man 
there before the journey north to Caesarea Philippi (Mark 
viii. 22-26). 



DURING THE ABSENCE OF THE TWELVE 49 

as to the Persean ministry. It also fills the gap 
in time which the absence of ten of the Twelve 
requires by a sufficient amount of active ministry 
of Jesus to satisfy all conditions of the problem. 
It also explains the movements of Jesus in ac- 
cordance with the perils of His position, and 
enables us to see how the crisis is brought on 
which finally removes every reason for caution 
and justifies Him in making a distinct announce- 
ment of His Messiahship. Thus He secures His 
definite acceptance as Messiah by His chief dis- 
ciples, and is enabled to give them a clear warn- 
ing of His impending death and resurrection just 
before He makes His last journey to Jerusalem, 
to the cross and the crown. 



V 

HOW MANY AND WHAT FEASTS DID JESUS 

ATTEND ? 

THE Synoptists mention only one feast 
which Jesus attended, the Passover, in 
connection with which He was crucified. John's 
Gospel also mentions this Passover, but there is 
a grave difference between John and the Synop- 
tists as to the day of the crucifixion, whether it 
occurred on the day of the Passover, or the day 
before. The discussion of this difference I shall 
reserve for the present. 

It may also be said that another earlier Pass- 
over is implied in the story of the plucking and 
eating ripe grain. 1 The public ministry of Jesus 
according to the Synoptists might thus be em- 
braced in a period of a little more than a year. 

But the Gospel of John mentions several 
feasts : 

1. Passover, John ii. 13. 

2. A feast unnamed, John v. 1. 

3. Passover, John vi. 4 



1 Mark ii. 23-28 ; Luke vi. 1-5 ; Matt. xii. 1-8. See p. 14. 



HOW MANY FEASTS DID JESUS ATTEND? 51 

4. Tabernacles, John vii. 2. 

5. Dedication, John x. 22. 

6. Passover, John xi. 55. 

If the narrative of John be chronological, we 
have three Passovers defined, which gives us a 
ministry of two years and upward. The feast 
undefined l is regarded as a Passover by Robin- 
son. This would make a ministry of three years 
and upward. But though a pupil of Robinson 
and his successor, following him for many 
years in this opinion, I can no longer hold it. 
All the other feasts are defined in this Gospel. 
We might say that the author who left this feast 
undefined most probably did not know which 
one it was. The argument of Robinson is based 
on the Hebrew usage of making the noun defi- 
nite by the construct relation which is repre- 
sented in Greek by the genitive. 2 This usage 
must be recognized as a possibility ; but it is by 
no means certain in this case. The Sinaitic 
codex of the Gospel gives the definite article with 
the principal noun. But this cannot be given 
much weight over against the absence of the 
article in the other great Uncials of the New 
Testament. 



1 John v. 1. * Robinson's Harmony, pp. 190 seq. 



52 



NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 



But even if we had sufficient evidence that 
this feast was made definite by the article, it by 
no means follows that it was the Passover. All 
the examples given by Robinson in which the 
feast refers to the Passover are in a context in 
which the Passover had been already mentioned. 
He gives no example in which the feast, at the 
beginning of a narrative, by itself, stands for the 
Passover ; and even if a few instances could be 
given, it would not prove that it must always be 
so, or that it was certainly so in this particular 
case. It is true that Irenasus, Eusebius, Theo- 
doret, and other early writers held that this feast 
was a Passover. But Tatian, Jerome, Cyril, 
Chrysostom held it to be Pentecost, and so 
Erasmus, Calvin, Beza, Bengel, and others. The 
feast of Purim was first suggested by Kepler, 
who has been followed by many modern scholars 
such as Neander, Olshausen, Tholuck, Meyer, 
and Lange. Under these circumstances we may 
say that the text does not determine the ques- 
tion. We must decide upon other grounds if at 
all. It seems to be most probable that it was 
Pentecost. 1 

We have now to consider the other feasts. 



1 See p. 25. 



HOW MANY FEASTS DID JESUS ATTEND? 5S 

Can we be sure that the three Passovers men- 
tioned were all different Passovers ? Can we be 
sure that the narrative of John's Gospel is chron- 
ological ? Tatian did not think so, for he puts 
the cleansing of the temple and the interview of 
Jesus with Nicodemus at the last Passover. The 
Synoptists all place the cleansing of the temple 
at the last Passover, and that is for many rea- 
sons the most probable time of its occurrence. 
Jesus would not have forced the issue between 
Himself and the Sanhedrim, at the beginning of 
His ministry in Jerusalem, when, even according 
to John, He prudentially postponed the crisis as 
long as possible. 

It is altogether improbable that this violent 
and revolutionary act was repeated. The story of 
the interview with Nicodemus is certainly given 
in John too early in the development of the 
teaching of Jesus. Moreover the narrative itself 
implies many miracles. 1 But the only miracle 
recorded prior to this narrative is the one at the 
marriage feast at Cana, which certainly Nico- 
demus and the Jerusalemites had not witnessed, 
and which they could only have heard of by rumor 
if at all, and which therefore could not have had 



1 John ii. 23, iii. 2. 



54 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

any great influence upon a man like Nicodemus, 
or have won the faith of any of the people of 
Jerusalem. 

The interview with Nicodemus seems to have 
occurred at an earlier date than the last Pass- 
over, but not at so early a time as the order of 
John's Gospel would imply, if its order be re- 
garded as chronological. These two incidents 
are placed here by the author of John's Gospel 
for topical reasons. 

The Passover of John vi. 4, which was said to 
be "at hand " at the time of the Feeding of the 
multitude, was not a third intermediate Pass- 
over, but the last Passover ; for it was immedi- 
ately after the Feeding of the multitude, and 
soon after this event Jesus goes up to Jerusalem 
to His last Passover as we have seen. 1 

Accordingly the three Passovers of John's 
Gospel are not different Passovers, but one and 
the same Passover, and thus the supposed differ- 
ences between John and the Synoptic Gospels, 
in this respect, disappear. There were but two 
Passovers which Jesus attended, and His min- 
istry may be embraced in less than two years. 

The Gospel of John mentions the Feast of 

1 See p. 47. 



HOW MANY FEASTS DID JESUS ATTEND? 55 

Tabernacles, 1 and the Feast of Dedication. 2 The 
Feast of Dedication was not, to use modern 
ecclesiastical terms, a feast of obligation. But 
the Feast of Pentecost was one of the three 
feasts of obligation for which every pious Jew 
went up to Jerusalem to worship. It is improb- 
able that Jesus would violate the Law. The 
unnamed Feast 3 was probably just this feast. If 
this be so, the Feasts recorded in John's Gospel 
give us a framework for the ministry of Jesus 
between the two Passovers — John v. 1 gives us 
Pentecost, John vii. 2 Tabernacles, John x. 22 
Dedication. I have already shown that Mark ii. 
23-28, Luke vi. 1-5, Matt. xii. 1-8, imply a 
Passover just past, and that Jesus probably be- 
gan His ministry soon after the previous Feast 
of Tabernacles. 4 

We have then the following framework for 
the life of Jesus : 

1. Tabernacles, October. 

2. Passover, April. 

3. Pentecost, June. 

4. Tabernacles, October. 

5. Dedication, December. 

6. Passover, April. 



1 John vii. 2. 2 John x. 22. 3 John v. 1. * See p. 16. 



56 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

I have shown that the first Galilean ministry 
and the earlier Judsean ministry were prior to the 
first Passover. 1 I have also shown that the se- 
lection and the sending forth of the Twelve and 
all the related material of the Galilean ministry 
belong prior to the Jerusalem ministry, at Tab- 
ernacles and Dedication, and also prior to the 
Peraean ministry of Luke and John. 2 The jour- 
ney to Jerusalem at Pentecost alone interrupts 
the Galilean ministry. I have shown that the 
journey through Samaria of John iv. is out of 
its historical order and really was subsequent 
to Dedication ; and that Jesus then makes His 
last journey to Galilee, goes northward to Phoe- 
nicia, then to the Northern Decapolis, and meets 
His disciples at Bethsaida just prior to the Feed- 
ing of the multitudes ; and that this was just 
before the last Passover. 3 So soon as we aban- 
don the opinion that the order of John's Gospel 
is chronological, the separate incidents may all 
be arranged in a simple and natural harmony on 
the framework of the Feasts as given above. 

There remains to be considered the discrepan- 
cy between John and the Synoptists as to the 
last Passover. Mark states that " on the jii^st 



See p. 13 seq. s See p. 21 seq. 3 See p. 45. 



HOW MANY FEASTS DID JESUS ATTEND? 57 

day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed 
the Passover ," the disciples were instructed to 
make ready to eat the Passover, and that they 
made ready the Passover in the guest chamber 
to which Jesus directed them. 1 The natural 
implication from this is that they not only se- 
cured a chamber for the Paschal meal, but also 
made the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb in the 
temple according to the Law, and prepared the 
flesh with the unleavened bread and the bitter 
herbs and the wine prescribed for the meal ; and 
that therefore, when it was evening, 2 Jesus and 
His disciples ate the Paschal lamb prior to the 
institution of the Lord's supper. 3 Matthew 4 evi- 
dently depends upon Mark as its source ; for it 
condenses the statement of Mark 5 into three 
verses, 6 making it more evident that Jesus Him- 
self selected the place of the meal. 

Luke 7 tells us that it was Peter and John who 
made these preparations. He probably had 
another source of information as to this event 
than Mark. He also puts the statement of time 
in a different form. "And the day of unleavened 



1 Markxiv. 12-16. 2 Mark xiv. 17. 

8 Markxiv. 18-25. * Matt. xxvi. 17-36. 

5 Mark xiv. 12-16. 6 Matt. xxvi. 17-19- 

T Luke xxii. 7-13. 



58 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

bread came, on which the Passover must be sacri- 
ficed" 1 The difficulty with these statements of 
the Synoptists is that they do not altogether 
conform to the law of the Passover. 

That law 2 puts the sacrifice of the Passover 
on the fourteenth of the first month between the 
evenings, probably between three o'clock in the 
afternoon and sundown. The feast of unleavened 
bread begins on the fifteenth of the month, and 
continues for a week until the twenty-first. The 
first day was a great sabbath of holy convoca- 
tion, the first of the seven great sabbaths, while 
the seventh or last day of the Feast was the 
second great sabbath. The Hebrew day began 
with sunset, the fifteenth day began with night- 
fall of the fourteenth, and on that evening the 
Paschal lamb was eaten. How, then, can the 
Synoptists say that the Jews were accustomed 
to sacrifice the Passover on the first day of un- 
leavened bread ? 

It might be said that the eating of the Pas- 
chal sacrifice was on that day ; but not the sacri- 
fice itself. We might say that the author uses 
sacrifice in the sense of eating of the victim. 



1 Luke xxii. 7. 

2 Ex. xii. 2 seq; Lev. xxiii. 5 ; Num. xxviii. 16 seq. 



HOW MANY FEASTS DID JESUS ATTEND? 59 

But then how could the preparation be made on 
that day? Indeed it seems rather late in a 
crowded city to postpone all preparations until 
the very day of the sacrifice. The lamb must be 
selected according to the Law on the tenth day, 
that is four days before the sacrifice. 1 This 
selection could hardly have been neglected. It 
is indeed quite possible that the casting of the 
traders out of the temple on the tenth day was 
due to an attempt to defraud His disciples in the 
purchase of the Paschal lamb. 2 

Dr. Robinson urges that " it was customary 
for the Jews, on the fourteenth day of Nisan, 
to cease from labor at or before midday ; and to 
put away all lea v en out of their houses before 
noon ; and to slay the Paschal lamb toward the 
close of the day. Hence, in popular usage, the 
fourteenth day came very naturally to be reckoned 
as the beginning or first day of the festival ; — 
and Joseph us could say that the festival was cel- 
ebrated for eight days." 3 This argument is that 
the Gospels are using popular rather than legal 
language. 

This is possible and might be accepted, were 



1 Ex. xii. 3. 2 See p. 103. 

3 Harmony Appendix Pt. VIII. hi.; Josephus B. J. iii. 1 ; 
Ant. XI. iv. 8; ii. 15. 1. 



60 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

it not for the statement of the Gospel of John 
which implies that Jesus did not eat the Passover 
with His disciples, but was crucified on the day of 
the Passover. 

(1) John 1 states that the great farewell dis- 
course of Jesus took place before the Passover. 

(2) The Jews on the day of the arrest and 
crucifixion " entered not into the judgment hall 
that they might not be defiled, but might eat the 
Passover"* This implies that they ate the 
Passover the night of the crucifixion and not be- 
fore. 

(3) The preparation of the Passover on the day 
of crucifixion 3 implies that it was the day before 
the Paschal meal. 

(4) " The preparation . . . for the day of that 
sabbath was a high day?*- implies the fifteenth 
of Nisan, the great sabbath of the first day of 
unleavened bread, on the morrow after the death 
of Jesus ; and the connection of the great sab- 
bath with the weekly sabbath. 

(5) It may also be urged that the supposition 
that Judas went forth just prior to the Lord's 
supper to buy what things they had need of for 



1 John xiii. 1. 2 Johnxviii. 28. 

3 John xix. 14. * John xix. 31. 



HOW MANY FEASTS DID JESUS ATTEND? 61 

the feast T 1 refers to the need of the Paschal 
meal the next evening, and that the meeting of 
the Sanhedrim to condemn Jesus was unlawful 
on the sabbath and great festival days. 

All this makes it evident that John repre- 
sents that Jesus was crucified on the day of the 
sacrifice of the Paschal lamb, and that He did 
not in fact eat the Passover with His disciples, 
but instituted the Lord's supper at an ordinary 
meal the evening before. This is doubtless more 
suited to the conception of Jesus as Himself the 
Paschal lamb, offered at the legal time; and 
may also be at the basis of Paul's conception 
that Jesus Himself is " our Passover T % These 
several statements of the Gospel of John are 
much stronger than the single statement of the 
Synoptists, which has, as we have seen, its in- 
trinsic difficulties. The error is probably in the 
Synoptists. Is it a real error or only an apparent 
one, and is it possible of adjustment? 

Resch gives, as in the original Hebrew Gospel 
upon which the Gospels depend, nosn nipn, which 
would yield the translation, before the Passover. 3 
If, however, it were read mpa, taking it as adjec- 
tive, we would get the rendering : on the first 



1 John xiii. 27-30. 2 1 Cor. v. 7. 

3 Resch, Die Logia Jesu. 1898. s. 184. 



62 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

day of the Passover. The variation of Luke 
from Mark here is less important. The question 
is as to the original of Mark. If the original 
Mark was Hebrew, did it read as Delitzsch 
gives it, rYtittan yrb •ptoann, or as Resch suggests, 
ncsn anp£, or mttan onpn, or simply mnan onp. 
The technical language is doubtless that given 
by Delitzsch, but that technical language applies 
to the fifteenth of the month, the day after the 
sacrifice of the Passover, and could not there- 
fore be used in popular language for the day be- 
fore. It is therefore much more probable that 
in the more popular language u*vp would be used. 
If so D*fp, as written without vowel points, might 
be interpreted either as a preposition, before, 
or as an adjective, first. There is probably an 
error of interpretation of the Hebrew Mark by the 
Greek Mark at the basis of the entire difficulty. 
If we interpret the original as a preposition and 
render : " before the feast of unleavened bread, 
when they sacrificed the Passover, His disciples 
say unto Him" the difficulty disappears ; for the 
feast of unleavened bread is used in the general 
sense as comprehending the entire Passover, as is 
explained indeed by Luke ;* and before that feast 

1 Luke xxii. 1. 



HOW MANY FEASTS DID JESUS ATTEND? 63 

is before the first event of the feast, the sacrifice 
of the Paschal lamb, and therefore the day be- 
fore that sacrifice, the thirteenth of Nisan. 

This is confirmed by the statement of Mark 1 
that Judas arranged with the Sanhedrim to be- 
tray Jesus two days before the Passover, that is 
the twelfth of Nisan. The language of Mark 
would most naturally refer to the following day, 
the thirteenth of Nisan, and Dip thus stands for 
the day before Passover. 

In this way all difficulty disappears, and we 
may follow with confidence John's representa- 
tion that Jesus was offered up as the Paschal 
lamb on the fourteenth of Nisan, and that the 
Jews celebrated the Passover meal while Jesus 
was lying in the grave. Thus the statement of 
John 2 that the scripture " a bone of him shall not 
be broken " was fulfilled, in the neglect of the 
soldiers to break his legs, as they did the legs of 
those crucified with him ; and the statement of 
St. Paul that Jesus Himself is " our Passover" 3 
were based on the event itself of the crucifixion 
of Jesus as the Paschal sacrifice. 

1 Mark xiv. 1. 2 John xix. 36. * 1 Cor. v. 7.' 



VI 

THE PEILEAN MINISTRY 

THE only reference to the Pergean ministry in 
Mark is placed subsequent to the Gali- 
lean ministry: l "And He arose from thence, and 
cometh into the borders of Judasa and beyond 
Jordan : and multitudes come together unto him 
again; and, as he was wont, he taught them 
again'' This is given in essentially the same 
form in Matthew. 2 It is in connection with the 
final journey to Jerusalem by the valley of the 
Jordan through Persea. The ministry could have 
been but brief, a few days only. The journey 
corresponds with the journey reported by Luke : 3 
"And it came to pass, as they were on the way 
to Jerusalem, that He was passing between 4 ' 
Samaria and Galilee. " It is often identified by 
harmonists with the earlier journey mentioned 
by Luke, 5 but that is altogether improbable. 



1 Mark x. 1. 2 Matt. xix. 1, 2. 3 Luke xvii. 11. 

* So Revised Version margin, which is preferred to through 
the midst of in the text. 
5 Luke ix. 51. 



THE PERMAN MINISTRY 65 

The material given by Mark in this connection 
is the following : 

1. The Question of the Pharisees concerning 
Divorce. 1 

2. The Blessing of Little Children. 2 

3. The Counsel of Perfection. 3 

4. An Announcement of His Death and Res- 
urrection. 4 

5. Rebuke of the Ambition of James and 
John. 5 

The next incident is the healing of the blind 
man near Jericho in Judaea. These events are in 
this same order in all of the Synoptists, and it is 
probably correct. Luke gives in addition, prior 
to (2) and evidently before the arrival in Persea: 

(a) the Healing of the Lepers, 6 

(b) the Discourse as to the Advent of the 
Kingdom, 7 

(c) the Parable of the Unjust Judge, 8 

(d) the Parable of the Pharisee and the 
Publican. 9 



1 Mark x. 2-12; Matt. xix. 3-12. 

2 Mark x. 13-16; Matt. xix. 13-15; Luke xviii. 15-17. 

3 Mark x. 17-31 ; Matt. xix. 16-xx. 16; Luke xviii. 18-30. 

4 Mark x. 32-34; Matt. xx. 17-19 ; Luke xviii. 31-34. 

5 Mark x. 35-45 ; Matt. xx. 20-28. 

6 Luke xvii. 11-19- 7 Luke xvii. 20-37. 
8 Luke xviii. 1-8. 9 Luke xviii. 9-14. 



66 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

(a) and (b) are probably in their proper place, 
although the greater part of the material of (b) is 
combined by Matthew xxiv. with the great es- 
chatological discourse in Jerusalem. The two 
parables (c) and (d), given only by Luke, have a 
topical propriety here as subsequent to the ques- 
tion of the Pharisees as to the kingdom, and it 
may be that they are in their historical place. 
But we cannot be sure of it. 

The Gospel of John, however, gives us an 
earlier Persean ministry: "And he went away 
again beyond Jordan into the place where John 
was at the first baptizing ; and there he abode. 
And many came unto him; and they said, John in- 
deed did no sign : but all things whatsoever John 
spake of this man were true. And many believed 
on him there} This cannot be identified with 
the Pereean ministry above-mentioned. It was 
a prior ministry in Peraea unknown to Mark and 
Matthew. This ministry was subsequent to the 
feast of Dedication. It was from Persea that 
Jesus came to Jerusalem to raise Lazarus from 
the dead. 2 In the above statement of John 3 the 
word again implies a visit to Persea prior to this, 



1 John x. 40-42. 3 John xi. 6, 7. 

3 John x. 40. 



THE PERM AN MINISTRY 67 

that is before the feast of Dedication, probably 
between Tabernacles and Dedication. 

When now we turn to Luke we find a Persean 
ministry of considerable extent, which may be 
assigned in part to the earlier ministry suggested 
by John, and in part to the later ministry stated 
by John. As we have seen in a previous chap- 
ter the Seventy were sent forth on a mission to 
Perasa in advance of Jesus Himself. They were 
probably sent from Jerusalem after the feast 
of Tabernacles. Jesus followed in their foot- 
steps. These two ministries of Jesus in Persea 
are distinguished also in Luke, for he tells of a 
journey toward Jerusalem, 1 which probably 
corresponds with the journey to the feast of 
Dedication. To the earlier ministry in Persea 
we may assign the greater part of what Luke 
gives prior to this journey, namely : 

1. The question as to prayer and the giving 
of the Lord's Prayer. This was appropriate in 
the scene of the Baptist's ministry, for Jesus is 
asked to teach His disciples to pray as John also 
taught his disciples. The incident is accompan- 
ied by an appropriate parable and a logion. 2 
The logion and the prayer are given out of place 

1 Luke xiii. 22. 2 Luke xi. 1-13. 



68 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

by Matthew, attached to the Sermon on the 
Mount. 

2. The casting out of a demon from a dumb 
man. 1 This is given by Matthew 2 at an earlier 
date. But Luke's order is most probable. 

This is followed by a warning against evil 
spirits and the sin against the Holy Spirit, 3 which 
is given in Mark 4 in connection with an earlier 
event, but evidently for topical reasons, as Mark 
does not give the healing of the demoniac, 
which is the natural basis for the discourse. 
This is followed in both Luke B and Matthew 6 
by the demand for a sign and the mention of the 
sign of Jonah, which are given here out of place 
for topical reasons. It is probably the same as the 
demand for a sign at the close of the Galilean 
ministry, just before the last journey to Jerusa- 
lem, and therefore too early. Luke 7 inserts the 
incident of the woman pronouncing the mother 
of Jesus blessed, which doubtless belongs here. 
But Luke 8 gives a series of logia given by Mat- 
thew in part in his version of the Sermon on the 



1 Luke xi. 14. * Matt. xii. 22, 23. 

8 Luke xi. 15-26 ; Matt. xii. 24-32, 43-45. 
4 Mark iii. 19-30. 5 Luke xi. 29-32. 

6 Matt. xii. 38-42. ' Luke xi. 27, 28. 

8 Luke xi. 33-36. 



THE PERSIAN MINISTRY 69 

Mount, and in part by Luke 1 and Mark 2 on 
another occasion. So also Matthew 3 gives 
logia not in Luke. These logia were all derived 
from the Logia of Matthew and are given by both 
evangelists in these places for topical reasons. 

3. Jesus breakfasts with a Pharisee, 4 when 
there is a discussion as to ceremonial purification 
before meals ; which reminds us of a similar dis- 
cussion in Mark 5 and Matthew. 6 There it was 
the disciples who were challenged, here Jesus 
Himself. The former was at the close of the 
Galilean ministry, the latter is given by Luke 
here. It is possible that they are variant tra- 
ditions of the same event. If so, Luke, for top- 
ical reasons, has given it out of place as an in- 
troduction to the woes pronounced against the 
Pharisees 7 which are given by Matthew in con- 
nection with the struggle with the Pharisees in 
Jerusalem in Passion week. 

4. This is followed by a warning against the 
Pharisees, 8 which may be in place. But it is fol- 
lowed by a series of logia, 9 given by Matthew 
and Mark and even Luke himself elsewhere — 
thus doubtless in all cases for topical reasons. 



1 Luke viii. 16. 2 Mark iv. 21. 3 Matt. xii. 36, 37. 

4 Luke xi. 37-39- 5 Mark vii. 1-23. 6 Matt. xv. 1-20. 
7 Luke xi. 42-54. 8 Luke xii. 1. 3 Luke xii. 2-12. 



70 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

5. Next comes the request of a man that 
Jesus may intercede with his brother as to his 
inheritance. 1 This is followed by the parable 
of the rich fool, 2 which very probably belongs 
here. To it are attached kindred logia, 3 given 
by Matthew in his version of the Sermon on the 
Mount, followed by parables, 4 given by Matthew 
in connection with the great eschatological dis- 
course; and a series of logia 5 given by Matthew 
in three different connections. These are all 
given here for topical reasons, and have no spe- 
cial propriety at this time rather than another. 6 

6. The reference to the Galileans slain by 
Pilate in Jerusalem, with the parable of the fig 
tree, 7 probably belongs here. 

7. The healing of the woman with an infirmity 
in a synagogue on the Sabbath 8 is also probably 
in its proper historical place. To this the para- 
bles of the grain of mustard seed and the leaven 
are added, 9 given by Matthew in connection 
with his collection of the parables of the kingdom. 

All of this material is given by Luke prior 
to the journey to Jerusalem, which was to the 



1 Luke xii. 13-15. 2 Luke xii. 16-21. 3 Luke xii. 22-34. 
4 Luke xii. 35-48. 5 Luke xii. 49-59- 

6 Certainly verses 35—53 seem to be too early. 

7 Luke xiii. 1-9. 8 Luke xiii. 10-17. 9 Luke xiii. 18-21. 



THE PERMAN MINISTRY 71 

feast of Dedication, according to the Gospel of 
John. 1 

The logia and the parables — many of them at 
least — were attached to the incidents for topical 
reasons, and do not belong there historically. 

The first period of the Pereean ministry closes 
with the journey to the feast of Dedication. 2 
To this Luke attaches logia 3 in reply to a ques- 
tion : " Are they few that be saved?" which seem 
appropriate here, although given by Matthew in 
part in his version of the Sermon on the Mount, 
but in part also in several other connections. 4 

Here Luke attaches the warning given by the 
Pharisees against Herod, which seems quite 
appropriate in Perasa. 5 To this is attached a 
lament over Jerusalem, 6 given by Matthew 7 in 
Jerusalem itself, during Passion week. This 
lament implies several previous visits to Jerusa- 
lem and a final visit. It is out of place, there- 
fore, in connection with a visit to the feast of 
Dedication followed by another visit for the 
raising of Lazarus before the final journey. It 



1 See p. 56. 2 Luke xiii. 22. s Luke xiii. 23-30. 

4 Matt. viii. 11, 12, xiii. 42, 50, xix. 30, xx. 16, xxiv. 51, 
xxv. 30. 

5 Luke xiii. 31-33. 6 Luke xiii. 34, 35. 
T Matt, xxiii. 37-39- 



72 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

is equally out of place in both Matthew and 
Luke. 

The second period of the Peraean ministry was 
a brief one, as it was all included in the short 
time between the feast of Dedication and the 
raising of Lazarus. The only incident men- 
tioned probably belongs here. 

1. We have first the sabbath meal with a chief 
Pharisee when Jesus heals a man with dropsy, 1 
to which is appended the parable of the chief 
places at the marriage feast, 2 peculiar to Luke, 
with the associated logia; 3 and the parable of 
the marriage feast, 4 given by Matthew 5 in Pas- 
sion week in Jerusalem. The connection is cer- 
tainly more appropriate in Luke. 

2. A series of logia, 6 spoken by Jesus to His 
disciples, as to counting the cost, some given by 
Matthew and Mark, and even Luke himself in 
other connections. 

3. Three parables of saving the lost, in justifi- 
cation of His receiving sinners and eating with 
them, against the murmurs of the Pharisees. 7 
The parable of the lost sheep is given by Mat- 



1 Luke xiv. 1-6. 2 Luke xiv. 7-10. 

3 Luke xiv. 11-14. 4 Luke xiv. 15-24. 

5 Matt. xxii. 1-10. 6 Luke xiv. 25-35. 
7 Luke xv. 






THE PERMAN MINISTRY 73 

thew * at a later date. The other two are pecul- 
iar to Luke. 

4. Then follow the parables of the shrewd 
steward, and of Dives and Lazarus, 2 with inter- 
vening logia, given by Matthew in his version of 
the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere. 

5. Next come 3 logia to the disciples, given by 
Matthew, 4 and Mark, 6 at a later date ; and a par- 
able peculiar to Luke. The material given here 
is indeed, with the single exception of the heal- 
ing of the man with the dropsy, entirely teach- 
ing. Some of it is evidently out of place, al- 
though a large amount of it is quite appropriate 
in the connection given it by Luke. 

We have sufficient evidence that the Persean 
ministry was divided into three periods, and that 
the Seventy preceded Jesus in His work during 
the first period. It is probable that the Seventy 
continued their work until Jesus' last visit, when 
they joined Him for His journey to Jerusalem 
for the last Passover. The material given by 
Luke in these chapters is not in Mark, whom he 
follows closely in the main so far as he goes. 
This material is composed of : ( 1 ) Logia derived 



1 Matt, xviii. 12-14. 2 Luke xvi. 8 Luke xvii. 1-10. 

* Matt, xviii. 6, 7, 15, 21, 22. 6 Mark ix. 42. 



74 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

from the Logia of Matthew. These logia are in 
Luke attached to parables and historical inci- 
dents. In Matthew's Gospel they are for the 
most part gathered about the four discourses — 
(a) The Sermon on the Mount, 1 (b) The Com- 
mission of the Twelve, 2 (c) The Woes upon 
the Pharisees, 3 (d) The Eschatological Dis- 
course. 4 On the whole their location in Luke is 
more appropriate than in Matthew, but as we 
have seen, we must regard a considerable num- 
ber of them as in topical rather than chronologi- 
cal place in Luke also. 

(2) The parables may be divided into two 
groups, those common with Matthew and those 
peculiar to Luke. Those common with Matthew 
are given by Matthew chiefly in its groups of 
parables, either — (a) Parables of the kingdom, 
at the sea. 5 (b) In teaching the disciples. 6 (c) 
In conflict with the Pharisees in Jerusalem. 7 
(d) Appended to the eschatological discourse. 8 

These parables are so different in Luke, in 
structure and detail, from the version of Mat- 
thew that it is impossible to think that they were 
derived from a common written source. They 



1 Chaps, v.— vii. 2 Chap. x. 3 Chap, xxiii. 

i Chaps, xxiv., xxv. 5 Chap. xiii. 6 Chaps, xviii., xx. 

7 Chaps, xxi., xxii. 8 Chaps, xxiv., xxv. 



THE PER^AN MINISTRY 75 

must have come from different oral sources with 
varying details. Here again the connections in 
which they are given by Luke are more natural 
than those in which they are given by Matthew; 
although we cannot ignore the probability that 
topical reasons influenced Luke also rather than 
chronological reasons. 

The most of the parables given by Luke in 
this section are peculiar to him. They are not 
parables of the kingdom setting forth its myste- 
ries. They are parables of grace and salvation, 
making plain to the people the w r ay of salvation. 
They belong to another method of teaching than 
that given in Mark and Matthew. It is alto- 
gether probable, therefore, that they belong to a 
period of ministry and a place of ministry of 
which Mark and Matthew knew nothing. They 
have their appropriate place in the Peraean 
ministry. In some respects their teaching is 
more in accord with the Jerusalem ministry of 
John than with the Galilean ministry of Mark. 

(3) There are but few incidents in these chap- 
ters as compared with those giving the Galilean 
ministry of Mark, and the Jerusalem ministry of 
John. The reason for this was probably the his- 
torical situation, — peril from Herod, and the 
constant hostility of the Pharisees. Jesus' minis- 



76 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

try was less in the synagogues and less in public 
than during the Galilean ministry. It was more 
in private and more in teaching disciples. The 
work of the Seventy was going on all through 
Pereea during this period. If they went in pairs 
there were thirty-five or thirty-six different 
missions which must have covered the whole 
land of Persea and much of Judeea also, at least 
the whole valley of the Jordan. There is no 
sufficient reason, therefore, to think of a written 
source for this material. It was derived by 
Luke from some one or more of the companions 
of Jesus in this ministry; for it is altogether 
probable that one of the pairs of the Twelve 
continued with Him during all this period. If 
James and John, owing to their connections in 
Jerusalem, remained for the most part during 
this period in Jerusalem, it may well be that 
they brought to Jesus the sad report of the 
death of Lazarus, for John gives the narrative 
and words at this time. It may be that 
Matthew and his mate Thomas were the com- 
panions of Jesus in the Pereean ministry. 
Thomas is mentioned * as being with Jesus in 
Perasa. He it is who, when some disciples 

1 John xi. 16. 



THE PERM AN MINISTRY 77 

object to the journey to Jerusalem for the rais- 
ing of Lazarus, heroically says, "Let us also 
go that we may die with him." No other mem- 
ber of the Twelve is mentioned in connection 
with events or discourses which certainly belong 
to the Peraean ministry. The reference to 
Peter, in Luke, 1 is in connection with a parable 
which is not in its local or chronological place. 
Matthew was the mate of Thomas in the list of 
the Twelve, so that he must have been with his 
mate at this time. This explains how Matthew 
in his Logia could give Persean logia as well as 
Galilean. The Logia of Matthew, if it gave any 
historical incidents at all, gave them only briefly 
as introductory to logia. Matthew's Gospel, as 
we now have it, came from a different and a later 
hand. Luke's versions of the logia are usually 
nearer the original of Matthew's Logia in or- 
der, form, and substance, than the versions of 
Matthew's Gospel. There are also in the para- 
bles peculiar to Luke certain characteristics 
which Matthew, the publican, would have appre- 
hended more than any other of the Twelve. 
And it is quite possible that Luke had received 
oral information from Matthew himself. How- 

1 Luke xii. 41. 



78 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

ever this may be, the sources of Luke for the 
Peraean ministry were reliable oral sources, and 
when the material is properly arranged, it fits 
into the Life of Jesus with nicety and floods it 
with light. 



VII 

JESUS AND THE PHARISEES 

THE Pharisees were the dominant party in 
Judaism in the time of Jesus. Party 
spirit prevailed to an extraordinary degree, not 
only against their chief antagonists, the Sad- 
ducees, who had possession of the chief places of 
the priesthood, and great political influence ; but 
also against the minor parties such as the Hero- 
dians and Essenes, and indeed between the Phar- 
isee schools of Hillel and Shammai. 1 It was 
only natural, therefore, that they should look 
with suspicion upon the rise of a new party, at 
first under the leadership of the Baptist and 
then under the headship of Jesus. The Gospel 
of Matthew 2 represents that the Baptist sharply 
rebuked the Pharisees and Sadducees who came 
to his baptism. This is, however, not given in 
Mark, and Luke gives the rebuke a more general 
reference to the multitude. 3 The Gospel of 



See Messiah of the Gospels, pp. 38 seq. 

Matt. iii. 7-10. Matt. iii. 7-9. 



80 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

John states that the Pharisees sent representa- 
tives from Jerusalem to the Baptist to inquire 
who he was and why he baptized. 1 

The first conflict between Jesus and the 
Pharisees, according to Mark, was in Caper- 
naum during the introductory Galilean ministry. 
They accused Him of blasphemy because He 
said to the man sick of the palsy, " Thy sins are 
forgiven" and because of His asserting His 
authority as the Son of Man to forgive sins. 2 

They next accused Him of associating with 
publicans and sinners, because, after calling 
Matthew to be His disciple, He was present at a 
farewell feast given by Matthew to his friends. 3 
A third conflict soon followed as to fasting, in 
which Jesus defended the action of His disciples, 
in not conforming to the uses of the Pharisees 
in this respect. 4 It is probable also that the dis- 
cussion as to purification, about the same time, 
was one in which the Pharisees took an active 
part. 5 If all these disputes had already taken 
place in Galilee and in the valley of the Jordan 



1 John i. 19-28. 

2 Mark ii. 1-12; Matt. ix. 2-8; Luke v. 17-26. 

3 Mark ii. 13-17 ; Matt. ix. 9-13 ; Luke v. 27-32. 

4 Mark ii. 18-22 ; Matt. ix. 14-17 ; Luke v. 33-39. 
6 John iii. 25. 



JESUS AND THE PHARISEES 81 

before Passover, we can understand that the 
jealousy of the Pharisees at the greater success 
of Jesus than of John in winning disciples may 
have been so strong that it was prudent of 
Jesus, immediately after Passover, to depart to 
Galilee. 1 

On the way to Galilee another and still more 
serious conflict arose respecting the Sabbath, 
which became, from this time on, the most seri- 
ous question in debate. Jesus and His disciples 
were charged with violating the Sabbath because 
He allowed His disciples to pluck from the 
standing grain and eat it. 2 This is followed, in 
the narratives, by His healing the man with a 
withered hand on the sabbath. 3 It is evident 
that the Pharisees were already excited against 
Him on this occasion. They were watching 
Him for an opportunity to accuse Him. And 
after this cure they took counsel with the He- 
rodians to destroy Him. These two incidents 
are put together by the evangelists. But it is 
probable that this order was for topical reasons, 
and that the second incident was some time 
later. For the plotting of the Pharisees and the 

1 John iv. 1-3. 

a Mark ii. 23-28 ; Matt. xii. 1-8 ; Luke vi. 1-5. 

* Mark iii. 1-6; Matt. xii. 9-14; Luke vi. 6-11. 



82 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

Herodians at so early a date would have made 
His second Galilean ministry more difficult than 
it appears to have been from the narratives of 
this period. If the order of events given in 
previous chapters is correct, the last incident 
is probably the climax of the opposition of the 
Pharisees, before He goes up to Jerusalem to 
the feast of Pentecost. 

At this feast Jesus heals an infirm man on the 
sabbath. 1 The Pharisees of Jerusalem, there- 
fore, are now stirred up against Him for violat- 
ing, as they supposed, the law of the sabbath. 
He claims the authority to do this miracle on 
the sabbath as the Son of the Father, and so 
another ground of controversy arises respecting 
His claim of a special Sonship to God. Luke 2 
gives a touching story of Jesus at a meal in the 
house of a Pharisee, allowing a magdalene to 
kiss His feet, and then of His absolving her from 
all her sins. Whether this occurred in the sec- 
ond Galilean ministry, or at the beginning of the 
third, it is not easy to determine. It combines 
two grounds of accusation already given in other 
connections apart, namely, contact with sinners 
and His pronouncing forgiveness of sins. The 



1 John v. 1-18. 2 Luke vii. 36-50. 



JESUS AND THE PHARISEES 83 

situation is, however, less serious than that re- 
ported in connection with the sabbath cure, 1 and 
on that account might seem earlier. But, on 
the other hand, a different place at a later date 
might show a less serious situation. This is, as 
I understand it, the sum of the conflicts of Jesus 
with the Pharisees during His Galilean ministry. 
The scene now shifts to Jerusalem, where the 
conflict becomes much more serious, beginning 
with a reference back to the healing of the in- 
firm man already considered. 2 This conflict 
broke out afresh at the feast of Tabernacles. 
John 3 reports a continuous discussion with the 
Pharisees in which Jesus is in constant peril of 
His life. It is probable that the most of this 
material belongs to a later date. The only event 
mentioned is the healing on the sabbath, of the 
man born blind, with the discussion based upon 
it. 4 As Jesus' discourse on the last or great day 
of the feast is given 5 previously, we must either 
suppose that Jesus remained in Jerusalem some 
time after the conclusion of the feast day, in 
which the material of John must be placed ; or 
if Jesus departed from Jerusalem on His Persean 

1 Mark iii. 1-6. 2 John vii. 19-24. 

8 John vii. -x. 21. 4 John ix. 

5 John vii. 37-52. 



84 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

ministry directly after the feast, the material of 
these chapters must be put at another and later 
time. The latter opinion is more probable. 
The word of Jesus as to His pre-existence 1 
seems to be too early. And the same may be 
said of the crisis connected with the healing of 
the blind man. 2 In fact this material should be 
attached to the visit to Jerusalem at the feast of 
Dedication. 

We next turn our attention to the Perasan 
ministry, where the conflict with the Pharisees 
enters upon another stage. In the first Pereean 
ministry the conflict begins with the healing of 
a demoniac. The Pharisees charge Jesus with 
casting out demons through the authority of the 
prince of demons. Jesus warns them of the sin 
against the Divine Spirit. 3 The logia attached 
are given by Mark 4 in connection with another 
incident in Galilee. But this conflict is without 
sufficient motive in Mark at so early a date. It 
is appropriate where Luke puts it after the con- 
flict already considered. The next contest is at 
the table of a Pharisee, with reference to cere- 
monial purification before meals. 5 A similar dis- 



1 John viii. 56-59- 2 John ix. 

3 Luke xi. 14-15 ; Matt. xii. 22-24. 

* Mark iii. 22-30. 5 Luke xi. 37-41. 



JESUS AND THE PHARISEES 85 

cussion is given in Mark. 1 It is possible that 
these are different reports of one and the same 
discussion, especially as Luke does not report 
the story of Mark, and Mark does not give the 
story of Luke, while Matthew follows Mark. Tt 
is also possible, however, that this discussion 
may have occurred twice, because the stories are 
altogether different. The agreement is only in 
the essential subject of controversy. If the 
former alternative be correct, we must regard its 
place here in Luke as due to topical considera- 
tions, although it must be recognized that he 
gives it a better setting. To this incident Luke 
attaches a series of woes upon the Pharisees 2 
given by Matthew in connection with the final 
struggle in Jerusalem. 3 The connection of Luke 
has topical propriety, but it is improbable that 
Jesus would have uttered these woes at the table 
of a Pharisee where He was a guest. They are 
derived by both Matthew and Luke from the 
Logia of Matthew, where they probably had no 
historical connection. Each evangelist gives 
them in a connection most appropriate topically 
according to his mind. Matthew's use of them 



1 Mark vii. 1-23 ; Matt. xv. 1-20. 8 Luke xi. 42-52. 

8 Matt, xxiii. 



86 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

seems on the whole more appropriate. They 
apply, many of them, to the Pharisees of Jeru- 
salem rather than to those of Persea. The 
warnings against the leaven of the Pharisees 1 is 
appropriate in this connection and may be in its 
proper place, although it is given in Mark 2 in a 
still more appropriate place later. Luke 3 re- 
ports the healing of a woman on the Sabbath 
with the usual opposition of the Pharisees, here 
represented by the ruler of the synagogue. 

Jesus now returns to Jerusalem to the feast 
of Dedication. For what reason Jesus went up 
thither we are not informed. He probably had 
prudential reasons, as He had to steer between 
the Scylla of Herod and the Chary bdis of the 
Sanhedrim at this time. All that is reported at 
this feast is given in John x. 22-39. This is too 
meagre to explain this journey. It is altogether 
probable, therefore, that the incidents reported 
in the previous chapter of John belong here. 4 
It is probable also, that the healing of the 
blind man on the sabbath occurred at this time. 
We may then explain the intensity of the hos- 



1 Luke xii. 1. 2 Mark viii. 15 ; Matt. xvi. 6. 

3 Luke xiii. 10-17. 

4 John x. 26-29 implies x. 1-21 ; and x. 29-39 implies viii. 
12-59. 



JESUS AND THE PHARISEES 87 

tility of the Pharisees in view of the assertion of 
Jesus of His pre-existence as the Son of the 
Father, and His assertion of His Messiahship. 
No wonder that His life was now in extreme 
peril and that He had to depart again to Persea. 

The second Pereean ministry renews the con- 
flict with the Pharisees. Another sabbath meal 
with a Pharisee, when Jesus heals the man with 
the dropsy, 1 renews the discussion as to the sab- 
bath. Receiving and eating with sinners, against 
which the Pharisees murmured, is the occasion 
of the three parables of salvation. 2 The rebuke 
of the Pharisaic love of money is given in two 
other parables. 3 Jesus now suddenly goes up to 
Jerusalem to raise Lazarus from the dead. 4 His 
disciples remonstrate with Him because of the 
extreme peril of such a course. Thomas alone 
of the Twelve is mentioned as present. He is 
mated with Matthew in the lists of the six 
pairs of the Twelve, who was probably present 
also. 

The conflict has now reached its crisis in Jeru- 
salem, and the Pharisees in council, under the 
advice of Caiaphas, the Sadducee high-priest, 



1 Luke xiv. 1—6. 2 Luke xv. s Luke xvi. 

* John xi. 



88 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

decide to put Jesus to death. So Jesus hastily 
departed from Jerusalem to Ephraim. After 
a brief tarrying there, He journeys northward 
through Samaria, and secretly through Galilee to 
Phoenicia, then on the border of Galilee and 
Syria, to Decapolis, where the final Galilean 
ministry begins. The conflict with the Pharisees 
in Galilee now becomes much sharper. They 
persist in demanding a sign and stir up the peo- 
ple to this demand. This is evident in the dis- 
course in the synagogue of Capernaum, 1 which is 
probably the same incident as that briefly given 
in another connection in Mark. 2 Here comes 
the sign of the prophet Jonah, which is the sym- 
bol of His death and resurrection. This is ap- 
propriately followed by the warning against the 
leaven of the Pharisees. 3 It is probable that the 
discussion as to ceremonial purification before 
meals 4 belongs here, with the rebuke of the 
Pharisees for making void the word of God by 
their traditions. 

Jesus now leaves Galilee on His last journey 
to Jerusalem, passing through Pereea. On this 
journey comes the question of the Pharisees con- 



1 John vi. 26-40. 2 Mark viii. 10-13; Matt. xvi. 1-4. 

3 Mark viii. 14-21 ; Matt. xvi. 5-12. 
* Mark vii. 1-23 ; Matt. xv. 1-20. 






JESUS AND THE PHARISEES 89 

cerning divorce, 1 the discourse with the Pharisees 
as to the advent of the kingdom, with the es- 
chatological discourse attached, 2 and the parable 
of the Pharisee and the Publican. 3 

Jesus now enters Jerusalem, and the last strug- 
gle begins. This was a battle of words between 
Jesus and the Pharisees, in which, however, the 
other parties join. It probably lasted two days, 
in which Jesus finally silences all His adversaries. 
The report is given by Mark. 4 Luke 5 follows 
Mark closely, omitting, however, the question as 
to the great commandment, 6 which is given by 
him in another connection, and in another 
form. 7 Matthew 8 greatly enlarges the material 
not only by the addition of parables, given by 
Luke elsewhere, but also by the heaping up of 
woes upon the Pharisees, given by Luke as we 
have seen in connection with the Persean minis- 
try. The connection of Matthew seems more 
appropriate, but we cannot be sure that these 
logia are not indeed a gathering up of logia 
spoken on many different occasions. The con- 



1 Mark x. 2-12; Matt. xix. 3-12. 

2 Luke xvii. 20-37. 8 Luke xviii. 9-14. 
* Mark xi. 27-xii. 41. 5 Luke xx. 1-47. 

6 Mark xii. 28-34 ; Matt. xxii. 34-40. 

7 Luke x. 25-37. 8 Matt. xxi. 23-xxiii. 



90 



NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 



flict with the Pharisees had reached its goal. 
The Sanhedrim, controlled by the Pharisees, had 
determined His death. The grounds of accusa- 
tion had been prepared. But Jesus makes all 
this unnecessary, for under oath before the San- 
hedrim He meets the essential issue, asserts dis- 
tinctly that He is the Messiah, is condemned 
for blasphemy on that account, and is given over 
to Herod to be crucified as King of the Jews. 



VIII 

WHEN DID JESUS FIRST DECLARE HIS MES- 

SIAHSHIP? 

ANY attempt to harmonize the Gospels on 
the basis of a chronological order of the 
material in Mark or John is wrecked upon insu- 
perable obstacles. None of these is more impor- 
tant than the Messianic claims of Jesus. It is 
evident from the Synoptists that His claims 
were for the greater part of His Galilean minis- 
try veiled behind the term Son of Man; and 
from the Gospel of John in the Jerusalem min- 
istry, behind the term Son of the Father. 1 But 
there comes a time when Jesus distinctly claims 
recognition as the Messiah, and indeed as the 
suffering Messiah. If we could find an adequate 
reason for this change of policy, and fix the time 
of the change, one of the most important prob- 
lems in the life of Jesus would be solved. 

Such a reason and such a date are given in the 
story, John xi. 47-54. The Sanhedrim followed 



1 The Incarnation of oar Lord, pp. 28 scq., 50 seq. 



92 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

the advice of the chief priest Caiaphas, and de 
cided upon the death of Jesus as the only way in 
which to save the nation. This was soon after 
the resurrection of Lazarus — not long after the 
feast of Dedication, probably at the close of De- 
cember, or the beginning of January. This de- 
cision of the Sanhedrim made the arrest and 
death of Jesus only a question of time and of 
opportunity. Jesus was at once informed of 
this decision and — ' ' therefore walked no more 
openly among the Jews, but departed thence into 
the count7~y near to the wilderness, into a city 
called Ephraim ; and there He tarried with the 
disciples.'" 1 It became evident, therefore, that 
the next time Jesus appeared in Jerusalem 
He would meet His arrest and death. And it 
was not at all improbable that the Sanhedrim 
would send officers after Him to arrest Him on 
His journey. The little city of Ephraim on the 
borders of the wilderness and of Samaria afforded 
Him an easy and speedy way of escape from 
such a pursuit. There was now, therefore, no 
longer any reason for reticence as to His Mes- 
siahship on the part of Jesus. His enemies had 
decided upon His death. 

1 John xi. 54. 



HIS MESSIAHSHIP 93 

Indeed we may go back to the feast of Dedi- 
cation for the beginning of this critical situation. 
He went up to that feast from Persea to escape 
Herod and to continue His conflict with the 
Pharisees in Jerusalem. It was at this feast that 
He first advanced His Messianic relation as the 
Son of the Father to the assertion of His pre- 
existence before Abraham, and only escaped 
stoning for blasphemy by hurried escape from 
the Temple. It was at this feast that He dis- 
tinctly asserted His Messiahship to the blind 
man He had healed, and claimed his allegiance. 
The Messianic claims of Jesus, therefore, were 
brought clearly before the Sanhedrim and the 
people of Jerusalem. They themselves had 
forced the issue. They must either accept Jesus 
or reject Him. They determined to reject Him 
as a blaspheming pretender, and to expel the 
blind man, whom Jesus had healed, from the 
synagogue, as His disciple. This was the begin- 
ning of the policy of active persecution of Jesus 
and His disciples. Jesus, when he went up to 
Jerusalem to the raising of Lazarus, knew that 
He was entering into greater peril than He was 
exposed to from Herod in Pereea. His disciples 
interposed with an objection to the journey, but 
in vain. 



94 NEW LIGHT OX THE LIFE OF JESUS 

His death was decreed by the Sanhedrim at 
the feast of Dedication. It was certain to take 
place when next He came to Jerusalem at the 
ensuing Passover. There remained only about 
four months 1 during which He could secure 
from His disciples the recognition of His Mes- 
siahship, and therefore the time had come for 
Him to make this the burden of His teaching. 
After a brief sojourn in Ephraim Jesus makes 
the journey through Samaria to Galilee. In 
Samaria He was safe from the Sanhedrim and 
from Herod. At Sychar, the ancient seat of 
Jacob's well, He distinctly claims to be the Mes- 
siah and accepts the recognition of the Samar- 
itans. 2 The narrative tells us that He abode with 
them two days. On entering Galilee, He goes 
to Nazareth, His birthplace, and in the syna- 
gogue on the Sabbath, declares that He is the 
Messianic prophet of the second Isaiah, and gives 
His native city an opportunity of recognizing 
Him, which, however, His townsmen refused; 
and with difficulty He escapes their hands. 3 He 
thus realizes His peril, not only from Herod, 
but from the people of Galilee, even from those 



1 John iv. 35. 3 John iv. 25, 26. 

3 Luke iv. 16-30; Mark vi. 1-6; Matt. xiii. 54-58. 



HIS MESSIAHSHIP 95 

whom He had a right to expect would be most 
favorable to Him. 

Accordingly He at once departs to Phoenicia 
to the borders of Tyre and Sidon, Peter and 
Andrew probably being His only companions. 
Even there He wished to remain unknown. 1 
From thence He journeys along the northern 
borders of Galilee through the midst of the 
borders of Decapolis (the northern section), 
and goes up into a mountain, not far from 
Bethsaida, 2 which belonged to the jurisdiction 
of Philip. Here the Twelve join Him. But a 
great multitude crowd to Him also, and He 
works many cures and feeds the multitude in the 
wilderness. He sends the Twelve by sea to 
Bethsaida, while He Himself remains behind 
and apart to pray. 3 A storm forces the Twelve 
out of their course, and Jesus comes to them 
walking on the sea. 4 A calm coming on they 
are compelled to land in the plain of Gennesaret 
instead of at Bethsaida, and probably near Mag- 
dala at its southern end. 5 Jesus crosses the plain 
to Capernaum, where He delivers the discourse 
in the synagogue which brings on a crisis among 
His disciples. Many of His disciples abandon 

1 Mark vii. 24. 2 Mark vii. 31-37; Matt. xv. 29-31. 

3 Mark vi. 45, 46. * Mark vi. 47-56. 

6 See p. 48. 



96 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

Him, but the Twelve remain faithful, and 
speaking through Peter recognize Him as the 
Messiah. 1 This recognition is placed in John at 
the close of the discourse ; but it is doubtless the 
same recognition as that given by the Synoptists 
a little later at Ceesarea Philippi. 2 

The demand for a sign 3 other than His 
miracles is probably the same as that given in 
the Synoptists, 4 in which, under the symbol of 
Jonah, Jesus gives a veiled prediction of His 
death and resurrection. 

He crosses again to the other side of the sea, 5 
doubtless for prudential reasons, and goes to 
Bethsaida with the Twelve, where He heals a 
blind man, 6 and then journeys rapidly northward 
to Ceesarea Philippi, at the base of Hermon, 
where Peter, as the spokesman of the Twelve, 
distinctly recognizes Him as the Messiah. 7 Jesus 
then tells them of His impending death and 
resurrection. 8 This is followed by the Trans- 
figuration. 9 The grand tone of all His conversa- 



1 John vi. 22-71. 2 See p. 47. 

3 John vi. 30. * Mark viii. 11, 12; Matt. xvi. 1-4. 

5 Mark viii. 13. 6 Mark viii. 22-26. 

7 Mark viii. 27-30 ; Matt. xvi. 13-20 ; Luke ix. 18-21. 

8 Mark viii. 31-ix. 1 ; Luke ix. 22-27; Matt. xvi. 21-28. 

9 Mark ix. 2-13; Matt. xvii. 1-13 ; Luke ix. 28-36. 



HIS MESSIAHSHIP 97 

tions with His disciples subsequent to this event 
is His impending death. 1 

How natural all this is if it occurred a few 
days before His death, which He knew to have 
been already decided upon by the Sanhedrim. 
His journeys up to this time must have con- 
sumed several weeks. John 2 states that the 
Passover was at hand. We may therefore r • 
elude that the month of Nisan was about to 
begin at the time of the feeding of the multi- 
tudes. He must have been, therefore, within less 
than three weeks of His death when at Csesarea 
Philippi. How unnatural it is if all this is 
placed in the middle of His ministry, a year or 
more before His death, as the harmonists are 
accustomed to arrange it. 

From Csesarea Philippi, Jesus with the Twelve 
returns to Capernaum, 3 on a rapid journey to 
Jerusalem. He now takes the usual route, by 
the valley of the Jordan, followed by His dis- 
ciples and the multitudes. He crosses to Pereea, 4 
where it is probable that the Seventy rejoin 
Him. Then He continues His journey up to 
Jerusalem, 5 accompanied by both the Twelve 



1 Mark ix. 9-13, 30-32. 2 John vi. 4. 

3 Mark ix. 33 ; Matt. xvii. 24. 4 Mark x. 1. 

5 Mark x. 32-45. 



98 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

and the Seventy ; and again foretells to the 
Twelve His impending death and gives the high 
calling to suffer martyrdom in like manner. At 
Jericho, where the journey was naturally inter- 
rupted for a rest, He heals a blind man, 1 and 
accepts Zacchasus as a disciple, with whom He 
lodges for a night. 2 He then journeys on to 
j%?usalem, arriving at Bethany six days before 
the beginning of Passover, 3 late Friday on the 
evening beginning Sabbath. He lodges with 
Lazarus over Sabbath, and is anointed by Mary 
at a supper on the Sabbath. This which was 
designed by her in His honor, but was inter- 
preted by Jesus as for His burial, was indeed 
the provocation for the betrayal of Judas. Pas- 
sion week has begun. 

The next day, Sunday, the ninth of Nisan, He 
enters Jerusalem accompanied by the Twelve 
and the Seventy and a great throng of His dis- 
ciples, and He accepts their enthusiastic re- 
cognition of Him as the Messiah. 4 He knows 
He is about to die. There is no longer reason 
for hesitation. The more public the better. 
Jerusalem must accept Him or reject Him. 



1 Mark x. 46-52. 2 Luke xix. 1-10, 

3 John xii. 1-8. 4 Mark xi. 1-11, 



HIS MESSIAHSHIP 99 

This was her last opportunity. The casting out 
of the traders from the temple on the tenth was 
a still more marked declaration of His Messianic 
authority. A few days of conflict with the 
Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians, in which 
all these parties tried to entrap Him and get 
from Him grounds for condemnation — a few 
days of struggle between the Galilean and 
Persean multitudes who followed Him and the 
crowds of Jerusalem who rejected Him — a 
few more days for the instruction of His dis- 
ciples — the case against Him had been prepared 
and was ready; it was only necessary to arrest 
Him with as little disturbance as possible; the 
treachery of Judas enabled the Sanhedrim to 
make a quiet arrest in the night, and to hurry 
forward the process against Him, declare Him 
guilty, and secure the consent of the Roman 
Governor to His crucifixion, just before the 
Passover feast began. 

The order of events given above is a natural 
order — it is an order that exhibits a rapid de- 
velopment of events rushing on to the crisis, and 
it avoids the inconsistencies of the premature 
declaration and recognition of His Messiahship, 
and especially of a prediction of His death, 
months before there was any real peril of it, 

LofC. 



100 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

which the ordinary arrangement of the material 
gives us. Such a view, indeed, enhances the 
predictive element in the discourses of Jesus, 
but on the other hand it is difficult to see any 
real occasion for such prediction at so early a 
stage in His career, and it results in an ap- 
parently unnecessary and premature puzzling of 
His disciples with new difficulties, when those 
they were compelled to confront were great 
enough and severe enough in any case. 



IX 

THE ORDER OF EVENTS IN PASSION WEEK 

THE Gospels heap up events and discourses 
in the last week of Jesus' life. There are 
several difficult problems connected with the ar- 
rangement of the material. The Gospel of John 
tells us 1 that Jesus came to Bethany six days be- 
fore the Passover. This statement seems definite 
enough, and yet there are three different opinions 
as to the day, whether it was Friday, Saturday, 
or Sunday. This statement of the Gospel of 
John must be interpreted in accordance with the 
subsequent statement of this Gospel as to the 
Passover. As we have seen, John represents 
the crucifixion as taking place at the time of the 
sacrifice of the Passover on Friday, the fourteenth 
of Nisan — six days before would give us Saturday 
the eighth. Jesus having made the journey from 
Jericho on Friday, arrives late in the day on 
the evening after the Sabbath had begun. The 
Sabbath would then be spent in Bethany. This 

1 John xii. 1. 



102 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

gives room for the supper at Bethany on the 
Sabbath. 

The Sabbath seems to have been the custom- 
ary time for social gatherings in the time of 
Jesus. In John it is directly attached to the 
arrival in Bethany, 1 and gives a proper oppor- 
tunity for the coming of the crowds to see 
Jesus and Lazarus. 2 Another account of this 
supper and of the anointing is given in the 
Synoptists, 3 subsequent to the statement that 
the Sanhedrim two days before the Passover 
decided to betray Him. But this is doubtless a 
topical order due to the fact that the waste of 
this anointing is given as the motive for the 
betrayal of Judas, 4 which naturally comes after 
the determination to put Jesus to death. We 
may therefore follow John rather than Mark as 
to the time of the anointing, all the more that 
it gives Judas time to brood over his dissatis- 
faction before he finally decides to become a 
traitor. 

John 5 tells us that on the morrow, that is 
Sunday, the ninth of Nisan, Jesus made His 
Messianic entry into Jerusalem. The Synop- 



1 John xii. 2-8. 2 John xii. 9-11. 

3 Mark xiv. 3-9; Matt. xxvi. 6-13. 4 Mark xiv. 10, 11. 

5 John xii. 12-19. 



ORDER OF EVENTS IN PASSION WEEK 103 

tists 1 give it in connection with the journey from 
Jericho, so that it seems as if He went right on 
into Jerusalem the same day. The statement 
of John is more natural and so more probable. 
In the evening He retires to Bethany with the 
Twelve. 2 

On the morrow, that is Monday, the tenth of 
Nisan, 3 on His way to the temple, Jesus cursed 
the fig tree, and on His entry into the temple, 
cast out the traders because they had made it a 
den of thieves. 4 As the tenth day was the day 
of selecting the paschal lamb, it is quite possible 
that an attempt to defraud Jesus and His dis- 
ciples in the purchase of the lamb excited His 
indignation and induced Him to this assertion of 
His Messianic authority. Again He went forth 
to Bethany and lodged there. 5 Luke tells us, 
however, that He went to the Mount of Olives. 
And it may be that Jesus and His disciples 
lodged in the open air rather than in houses. 

In the morning, that is Tuesday, the eleventh 
of Nisan, they passed by the fig tree and found 
it withered away from the roots. 6 Now begins 



1 Mark xi. 1-11 ; Luke xix. 29-44; Matt. xxi. 1-11. 

2 Mark xi. 11. 3 Mark xi. 12-14; Matt, xviii. 18, 19. 
4 Mark xi. 15-19 ; Matt. xxi. 12-17 ; Luke xix. 45-48. 

3 Matt. xxi. 17. 6 Mark xi. 20-25 ; Matt. xxi. 20-22. 



104 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

the conflict of Jesus with the Pharisees and 
other Jewish sects, who try one after the other 
to entrap Him. The Synoptists begin the nar- 
rative immediately after the narrative of the 
withering of the fig tree but without any pre- 
cise indication of time: "And they come again 
to Jerusalem ;" 1 "and when he was come into 
the temple ; " 2 Luke 3 makes the statement, 
"And it came to pass, on one of the days." 
This is preceded by the general statement, 4 
"And he was teaching daily in the temple. 
But the chief priests and the scribes and the 
principal men of the people sought to destroy 
him; and they could not find what they might 
do; for the people all hung upon him, listen- 
ing." 5 It is probable, therefore, that we have 
to distribute these discussions over two days, 
Tuesday and Wednesday. It is evident that 
a large amount of additional material given here 
by Matthew is used in accordance with his 
method of gathering logia, parables, and dis- 
cussions spoken on different occasions in con- 
nection with some principal occasion. Much of 
this is given on other occasions in the other 



1 Mark xi. 27. 2 Matt. xxi. 23. 

3 Luke xx. 1. * Luke xix. 47, 48. 

5 Mark xi. 18. 



ORDER OF EVENTS IN PASSION WEEK 105 

Gospels. Mark, supported by Luke and John, 
are therefore the only safe guides. The first 
and most natural question is as to Jesus' author- 
ity. 1 This was probably on Tuesday, the day 
after His expulsion of the traders from the tem- 
ple. This is followed by a parable of the wicked 
husbandmen, 2 to which Matthew has attached 
two other similar parables. 3 

It is probable that we must assign the ques- 
tions 4 to the next day, Wednesday, the twelfth 
of Nisan, for they are represented as put to Him 
in the execution of a plan which had been deter- 
mined upon after careful deliberation. 5 The 
questions were designed to ensnare Him. Three 
different parties came to Him for this purpose — 
(1) the Herodians, 6 who try to entrap Him in a 
question as to the lawfulness of paying tribute 
to Caesar. (2) Next the Sadducees test Him as 
to the Resurrection. 7 (3) Finally the Phari- 
sees test Him as to the Law. 8 Jesus now turns 



1 Mark xi. 27-33 ; Matt. xxi. 23-27 ; Luke xx. 1-8. 

2 Mark xii. 1-12 ; Luke xx. 9-19- 

3 Matt. xxi. 28-41 ; xxii. 1-14. 

4 Mark xii. 13-34; Matt. xxii. 15-40; Luke xx. 20-40. 

5 Mark xii. 13 ; Matt. xxii. 15 ; Luke xx. 20. 

6 Mark xii. 13-17; Matt. xxii. 16-22; Luke xx. 21-26. 

7 Mark xii. 1 8-27 ; Matt. xxii. 23-33 ; Luke xii. 27-40. 

8 Mark xii. 28-34 ; Matt. xxii. 34-40. 



106 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

the tables on them with a question as to the 
Messiah, 1 which they cannot answer, and con- 
cludes with an exposure of the hypocrisy of the 
Pharisees, 2 to which Matthew adds a large 
amount of material from earlier occasions. 3 It 
is probable that the story of the widow's mite 4 
belongs to this day, and at its close the Escha- 
tological discourse to the disciples on the mount 
of Olives, 5 to which Matthew has added a large 
amount of additional material, 6 a considerable 
portion of which is given by Luke elsewhere. 
Matthew indeed puts this discourse two days 
before the Passover. Matthew 7 and Mark 8 tell 
us that it was on this day, two days before the 
Passover, that the Sanhedrim decided to put 
Jesus to death. They decided to take Him by 
craft and not during the feast, in order to avoid 
a tumult among the people. It is probable 
that. Judas came to them and arranged for the 
betrayal at this time, although it is quite possi- 
ble that it was not until the following day. 9 



1 Mark xii. 35-37; Matt. xxii. 41-46; Luke xx. 41-44. 

2 Mark xii. 38-40; Luke xx. 45-47. 3 Matt, xxiii. 

4 Mark xii. 41-44; Luke" xxi. 1-4. 

5 Mark xiii. ; Luke xxi. 5-38. 6 Matt, xxiv-xxv. 
7 Matt. xxvi. 1,2. 8 Mark xiv. 1-2. 
9 Mark xiv. 10, 11 ; Luke xxii. 3-5 ; Matt. xxvi. 14-16. 



ORDER OF EVENTS IN PASSION WEEK 107 

The day before the Passover had now come. 
What shall we assign to that day? Did Jesus 
remain on the Mount of Olives apart by Him- 
self, or did He go again to the temple ? In the 
latter case are we to place any of the discussions 
given above so late ? This is improbable. The 
contest of words had reached its end. His oppo- 
nents had been so defeated that they had given 
up the contest and only now thought of His 
arrest and death. It is quite possible that Jesus 
spent this day in retirement, so far as the morn- 
ing and afternoon were concerned. But it is 
more probable that He used it for a final dis- 
course in the temple. The Gospel of John 
indeed gives us material which comes in appro- 
priately here, and which it is difficult to put on 
an earlier day. John * tells us of a meeting with 
some Greeks in the temple, a theophany there, a 
declaration of His death, and a final rejection by 
the people, and ends with the statement — ' * He 
departed and hid himself from them. " 

If the interpretation 2 given in a previous 
chapter is correct, on this day Jesus sends Peter 
and John to prepare for the Passover meal. The 
story implies secrecy as to the place. On the 

1 John xii. 20-36. 

2 Mark xiv. 12 ; Luke xxii. 7 ; Matt. xxvi. 17. See pp. 6l seq. 



108 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

evening after the close of this day, on Friday, the 
fourteenth of Nisan, Jesus holds His farewell 
meal with the Twelve, and institutes the Lord's 
supper, 1 which is connected with a long farewell 
discourse of John. 2 

In the night they go forth to Gethsemane at 
the foot of the Mount of Olives, where He 
undergoes the agony of His last preparation for 
martyrdom. 3 Then follows His betrayal by 
Judas, His arrest by the officers of the Sanhe- 
drim, and His interrogation and trial before the 
Sanhedrim, all of which occurred during the 
night. On the morning of Friday, the four- 
teenth of Nisan, the Sanhedrim accuse Him 
before Pilate and demand His death. Pilate 
examines Him and can find no fault in Him. 
Desirous of pleasing the Jews, he offers them 
the choice of Jesus or Barabbas. They choose 
Barabbas and demand the crucifixion of Jesus. 
Pilate complies with their demand. Jesus is 
mocked as King of the Jews, is scourged by the 
soldiers of Herod and Pilate, and taken off to be 
crucified. During the extremity of His agony, 



1 Mark xiv. 12-26 ; Matt. xxvi. 17-36 ; Luke xxii. 7-30. 

2 Chaps, xiii.— xvii. 

3 Mark xiv. 32-42 ; Matt. xxvi. 36-46 ; Luke xxii. 39-46 ; 
John xviii. 1. 



ORDER OF EVENTS IN PASSION WEEK 109 

from the sixth to the ninth hour, from midday 
to three o'clock in the afternoon, there was an 
eclipse of the sun and an earthquake. Jesus 
seems to have expired about three o'clock in the 
afternoon, at the time when it was usual to begin 
the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb in the temple. 
The veil of the temple was rent by the earthquake, 
to show that it was now abandoned by God. 
The true Paschal lamb had just been sacrificed, 
the animal victims were no longer of any value. 

The time for the eating of the Passover was 
rapidly approaching, and it was improper to 
allow the bodies to remain on the cross ; for that 
would desecrate the feast. Accordingly they 
were removed in great haste after death had 
been certified. Joseph of Arimathgea obtained 
from Pilate authority to remove the body of 
Jesus to his own tomb. He was assisted by 
Nicodemus and the women from Galilee in the 
preparation of the body for entombment. 

On the Sabbath, the fifteenth of Nisan, Jesus 
remained in the tomb. But on Sunday, the six- 
teenth of Nisan, the day of the Omer offering, 
He arose from the dead according to His prom- 
ise and showed Himself to His disciples dur- 
ing forty days, after which He ascended to His 
heavenly throne to reign as the Messianic King. 



X 

THE FORTY DAYS OF THE RISEN JESUS 

THE earliest written reference to the resur- 
rection of Jesus is in the Epistle to the 
Galatians, written less than twenty years after 
the event. Paul claims to have received his 
Gospel by revelation from the risen Jesus. 1 The 
First Epistle to the Corinthians, written some 
five years later, makes the resurrection of Christ 
the cardinal principle of the Christian religion, 
and gives a number of appearances of the risen 
Jesus to His disciples. 2 These are no less than 
six in number : (1) to Cephas, or Peter, (2) to 
the Twelve, (3) to more than five hundred breth- 
ren, (4) to James, the Lord's brother, (5) to all 
the apostles, (6) to Paul himself. This was many 
years before any of the Gospels were written. In 
view of this full report of Paul, it is certainly 
surprising that the Gospel of Mark gives no ac- 
count whatever of the appearances of Jesus. It 
is true that we have 3 an account of several ap- 
pearances of the risen Jesus : (1) to Mary Mag- 



Gal, i. 11-12. 3 1 Cor. xv. 1-8. 3 Mark xvi. 9-20. 



FORTY DAYS OF THE RISEN JESUS 111 

dalene, (2) to two of the disciples unnamed, (3) to 
the Eleven. But it is evident that this is a con- 
densed statement from a much later date, and it 
is agreed by critics that this was a late addition 
to the Gospel. The original Mark, as preserved 
for us, contains, therefore, only the announce- 
ment of the resurrection to Mary Magdalene, 
Mary the mother of James, and Salome, by an 
angel, with the promise to Peter of an appear- 
ance * to the disciples in Galilee. This is all the 
more significant that the Gospel of Mark gives 
us no less than three predictions of His death 
and resurrection. 2 

The same is implied in all Jesus' predictions 
as to His second advent as the Son of Man 
on the clouds, in accordance with the concep- 
tion of the Son of Man of Daniel. It seems 
altogether improbable, therefore, that Mark, 
having prepared so carefully for the event of the 
resurrection by these predictions, would have 
given no account of it in his narrative. More- 
over it is evident that the Gospel without the 
closing section has no proper conclusion. Are 



1 Mark xvi. 1-8. 

2 (1) Mark viii. 31 ; Matt. xvi. 21 ; Luke ix. 22 ; (2) Mark 
ix. 30-32 ; Matt. xvii. 22, 23 ; Luke ix. 43-45 ; (3) Mark x. 
32-34 ; Matt. xx. 17-19 ; Luke xviii. 31-34. 



112 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

we to suppose that the present conclusion is a 
substitute for the original conclusion, owing to 
a mutilation of the only original manuscript, or 
that it has taken the place of the original conclu- 
sion by the intention of a later editor ? Both of 
these suppositions are improbable. The Gospel 
of Mark has at the beginning the sentence : 
" The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God.'' It is not clear whether this is a 
title, or the introductory clause of the sentence 
defined by the ministry of John the Baptist that 
follows. The most natural interpretation would 
be, if this is the title of the Gospel, that it im- 
plies a continuation of the Gospel in another and 
a concluding writing. The Book of Acts in the 
earlier chapters uses a Hebraistic source, giving 
an account of the origin of the Church at Jeru- 
salem and the development of Christianity from 
Jerusalem as a centre to Antioch, the capital of 
Syria. This source is used by Luke in a similar 
way to his use of Mark for his Gospel. Mark, 
as internal evidence shows, was the most natural 
person to have written this narrative. He was 
near to St. Peter, his mother's house was the 
gathering place of the early Christians, 1 he was 

1 Acts xii. 12 



FORTY DAYS OF THE RISEN JESUS 113 

present as an eye-witness of many of the remark- 
able scenes which are described. If he wrote 
the Gospel of Jesus he would also for a similar 
reason naturally write the story of the Jerusa- 
lem church. As he depended upon St. Peter 
for the one, so he depended upon St. Peter as 
well as himself for the other. If the Jerusa- 
lem source of Acts was a continuation of the 
Gospel of Jesus, we can understand better why 
the Gospel of Mark was the beginning of that 
Gospel. 1 Luke, when he distinguished between 
his former treatise, his Gospel, and the Book of 
Acts, his later treatise, simply followed his pred- 
ecessor and probable source, Mark. In the 
opening of Acts he tells us that Jesus "shewed 
himself alive after His Passion by many proofs, 
appearing unto them by the space of forty days, 
and speaking the things concerning the king- 
dom of God.'" 2 Two appearances after resur- 
rection are given in the subsequent narrative: 
(1) one in Jerusalem to the apostles when He 
charged them to wait for the baptism of the 
Holy Spirit ; (2) the other to the apostles when 
they asked Him respecting the restoration of the 
kingdom to Israel, which was at the time of the 

1 See p. 135. 2 Acts i. 3. 



114 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

ascension. 1 It is altogether probable that both 
of these came from the Jerusalem source. Turn- 
ing now to the appendix to Mark, we find the 
last of these appearances condensed in Mark xvi. 
19, 20, and the former in Mark xvi. 14. 

Mark xvi. 12, 13, gives a condensed narrative 
of the appearance of Jesus to the two disciples 
at Emmaus, fully reported in Luke xxiv. 13-35. 
Mark xvi. 9-11 gives an account of an appear- 
ance to Mary Magdalene. This appearance is 
not given by Luke, but is given by Matthew 
xxiii. 9, 10, attached to the story given by Mark 
of the visit to the tomb by the Magdalene and 
the other women. It is also given by John xx. 
11-18, attached to the same event. On the 
whole, therefore, it seems probable that though 
the appendix of Mark does not come from Mark, 
it yet is a condensation of the story of the resur- 
rection, given by Mark at the beginning of his 
Jerusalem source of the Book of Acts, which 
was added to the Gospel by a later editor to 
give it a completion, after the Gospel had been 
detached from its continuation. 

We would have then in the narrative of the 
original Mark (1) the appearance to the Magda- 

1 Actsi. 4-11. 



FORTY DAYS OF THE RISEN JESUS 115 

lene, (2) the appearance to the two at Emmaus, 

(3) the appearance to the Eleven in Jerusalem, 

(4) the appearance to the disciples at the time of 
the ascension. If so much is true, it is also 
probable that the appearance to Peter, appended 
to the story of the appearance to the two at 
Emmaus, 1 was derived from Mark, the Petrine 
source, and it is improbable that Mark would 
give the message of Jesus to the disciples and 
Peter, that He would appear to them in Galilee, 
and not give an account of that appearance to 
Peter, if he gave any appearance at all. It is 
probable also that we must add to the five ap- 
pearances already mentioned, the sixth in Galilee, 
reported in Matthew xxviii. 16-20. This is 
doubtless the same as the appearance of Mark 
xvi. 15-18, which, however, is so condensed 
that it appears as if given in connection with 
the previous appearance reported by Mark in 
Jerusalem. When now we compare these six 
appearances with the six given by Paul at an 
earlier date, three are in both — namely (1) to 
Peter, (2) to the Eleven, (3) to all the apostles. 
Three are peculiar to Paul, namely (1) to the 
five hundred, (2) to James, (3) to Paul. Three 



1 Luke xxiv. 34. 



116 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

are peculiar to Mark, (1) to the Magdalene, (2) 
to the two disciples, (3) at the ascension. 

We are now prepared to consider the reports 
of the other Gospels, so far as they have not al- 
ready been considered. We find nothing addi- 
tional in Matthew or in Luke. They depend in 
fact upon the original Mark for their narrative 
here as elsewhere. It is no more likely that we 
would find additional material to any extent in 
their narrative of the resurrection than in their 
other narratives. The Gospel of John, however, 
gives us additional information here as elsewhere. 
It enlarges upon the appearance to the Eleven, 
by stating that Jesus appeared at first to ten in 
the upper room, where the Lord's supper was 
instituted, Thomas being absent, 1 on the day of 
the resurrection ; and that in the next week He 
appeared again to the Eleven, Thomas being 
present. 

John also reports an appearance to the seven 
on the sea of Galilee, 2 thus two additional ones. 
Accordingly we have ten appearances of Jesus in 
all before His ascension, the one to Paul being 
subsequent to the ascension. 

A careful study of these appearances extending 3 



1 John xx. 19-25. 2 John xxi. 7-23. 3 Acts i. 3. 



FORTY DAYS OF THE RISEN JESUS 117 

during forty days of the fifty between Passover 
and Pentecost enables us to see a certain natural 
and appropriate progress in them. We distin- 
guish those in Jerusalem from those in Galilee. 
Those in Galilee divide those in Jerusalem into 
two divisions, so that we really have three stages : 
(I.) Those in Jerusalem on the day of the resur- 
rection and on the next Sunday. There were 
four appearances on the day of resurrection, (1) 
to Mary Magdalene, (2) to Peter, (3) to Cleopas 
and his companion, (4) to the Ten in the room of 
the Lord's Supper. (5) There was an appear- 
ance on the second Sunday to the Eleven. 

(II.) Those in Galilee were : (6) to the Eleven 
on a mountain, (7) to the Seven by the Sea. It 
is probable that (8) the appearance to the five 
hundred reported by Paul also occurred in Gali- 
lee, and also (9) the appearance to James, the 
Lord's brother. 

It is interesting to notice that these may be 
arranged on the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth Sun- 
days after the resurrection, giving us, therefore, 
about a month of the forty days for the appear- 
ances in Galilee ; which indeed is altogether 
probable in itself. It is unlikely that the dis- 
ciples would remain in Jerusalem more than a 
week after Passover, and so long only for good 



118 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

reasons. They would naturally go to their homes 
in Galilee, and the appearances of Jesus to the 
disciples there would be the ones that would con- 
firm their faith in Him and rally them to His 
cause. It is possible that there may have been 
other appearances not reported in the New Tes- 
tament. But it is of no slight importance that 
at least one of those reported may be assigned to 
each of the Sundays following the resurrection. 
These appearances of Jesus on successive Sun- 
days may have given origin to the assembling of 
Christians on that day, and also to the use of the 
term the Lord's day. 

(III.) One other appearance (10) is assigned 
to Jerusalem, and that at the close of the forty 
days, for the final interview and the ascension 
from the Mount of Olives. If we suppose that 
forty is a round number, we have the forty-second 
day, the sixth Sunday, or sixth Lord's day after 
the resurrection, only a week before the Lord's 
day of Pentecost. It is altogether probable that 
Jesus would choose a Lord's day for His ascen- 
sion. The disciples went up to Jerusalem the 
week before Pentecost, doubtless because they 
had been so advised by Jesus, and they were to 
wait in Jerusalem for the promised advent of the 
Spirit. They saw Jesus ascend into heaven on 



FORTY DAYS OF THE RISEN JESUS 119 

the sixth Lord's day after His resurrection. 
On the seventh Lord's day the divine Spirit 
came upon them as His coronation gift, endow- 
ing them with the authority and energy to organ- 
ize the Christian Church. 

If we study these appearances of Jesus during 
these forty days, we see clearly that Paul was 
justified in classing the manifestation to himself 
with the manifestations to the others. They 
were all, indeed, revelations or manifestations — 
Christophanies. Only from this point of view 
can they be understood. It was indeed the same 
Jesus who died and rose again, but He was not 
in all respects the same. His body saw no cor- 
ruption, but it did show transformation by which 
it became incorruptible. The body of Jesus was 
visible or invisible as He chose to make it so. 
He was so different that He could not be recog- 
nized even by His intimates, unless He made 
Himself known to them. His body was not 
subject to the laws which govern physical sub- 
stance. It was a body which might be touched 
and handled, exhibiting the marks of the cross, 
which might be felt as well as seen. He ate 
with His disciples on one occasion. And yet 
even in His first appearances in Jerusalem He 
entered and left rooms without the use of en- 



120 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

trances, as if He were a spirit. And on the day 
of ascension His body was not subject to the 
laws of gravitation, but ascended into the air 
and disappeared in the sky. Although we may 
say that He appeared to His disciples for a short 
time on seven different days, yet on all other 
days except these seven, and for the greater part 
of these days, He was invisible, leading not an 
ordinary human life, but the life of a spirit. We 
may see during these forty days indeed, a grad- 
ual transformation of the earthly body into a 
body prepared for the abode of spirits. 

These appearances of Jesus to His disciples 
were not merely to show Himself to them and 
convince them that He was indeed risen, they 
were also for purposes of instruction. This is 
evident from the statements of the Gospels. 
They all represent that Jesus gave a final com- 
mission to the Twelve. This is briefly stated in 
varying terms in the Gospels. But it is alto- 
gether probable, as 1 have shown elsewhere, 1 that 
a considerable amount of the material given by 
Matthew, and even Luke, in connection with the 
Commission of the Twelve and the Seventy, for 



1 The Apostolic Commission, Art. i. in Studies in Honor of B. 
L. Gilder sleeve. 



FORTY DAYS OF THE RISEN JESUS 121 

their missionary journeys in Galilee and Perasa, 
belonged really to the final commission, topical 
reasons alone justifying the present arrangement. 
The commission, as most fully given in John, is 
to the Seven on the sea, and especially Peter. 1 
But a more limited statement is made of a com- 
mission in connection with the appearance to the 
Ten. 2 It is altogether probable that a part of 
this commission is reported out of place for 
topical reasons in John xv.-xvi. And the final 
prayer of Jesus for His disciples, John xvii., 
would certainly suit much better a final inter- 
view just before the Ascension, than where it 
now is, just before the Passion. 

Luke tells us that Jesus gave His disciples 
full instruction respecting His fulfilment of the 
Messianic predictions of the Old Testament. 3 It 
was to be expected that He would do just this 
thing after His resurrection, and we can hardly 
explain the preaching of the Twelve as reported 
in the Book of Acts, based on the Jerusalem 
source, without some such instruction as this. 

The report of the institution of the Lord's 
supper in the Synoptists is absent from the nar- 
rative of John. It does not altogether agree 



1 John xxi. 2 John xx. 19-23. J Luke xxiv. 44-46. 



122 NEW LIGHT OX THE LIFE OF JESUS 

with the report of Paul. We could not prove 
from the Synoptists that it was anything more 
than the institution of the new Covenant, ob- 
served once for all. But Paul tells us that it 
was instituted as a permanent institution until 
the second advent of the Lord, and that it rep- 
resented not only a new Covenant, but that it 
stands for the Christian annual Passover, and 
also for all the thank- offerings and peace-offer- 
ings of the old dispensation, involving frequent 
observance. 1 

The narratives of the Book of Acts, based on 
the Jerusalem source, report the observance of 
the Lord's supper as a habit of the Christians 
from the beginning. 2 When now we turn to 
the Gospel of John, 3 we find a specific command 
to eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ as 
a condition of everlasting life. This can be un- 
derstood with difficulty in its present context. 
It clearly refers to the Holy Eucharist, but it is 
given here out of place, before its institution, be- 
cause of its parallelism in topic with the bread 
from heaven, about which Jesus has been dis- 
coursing. It is probable that these words have 



1 1 Cor. v. 7, x. 16-21, xi. 23-26. See Messiah of the Apos- 
tles, pp. 100 seq. 

2 Acts ii. 42. xx. 7-11. 3 John vi. 51-57. 



FORTY DAYS OF THE RISEN JESUS 123 

been taken from a post-resurrection discourse of 
Jesus; that this is just the discourse upon which 
the perpetual observance of the Lord's Supper 
depends ; that Paul has combined in his narra- 
tive the discourse on the night of the betrayal 
with this post-resurrection discourse ; and that 
the observance of the Lord's Supper of the early 
Christians depends upon this combined teaching. 1 
There must have been similar teaching of Jesus 
as to Baptism, for there is a mysterious gap be- 
tween the Baptism of the Gospels and the Bap- 
tism of the Apostolic History. It is true the 
command to baptize is in the apostolic commis- 
sion, but there are many questions which must 
have arisen, which seem to have occasioned no 
difficulty in the practice of the Apostolic Church. 
The commission of the Twelve is evident 
enough in the Gospels ; but what shall we say 
of the Seventy? They doubtless are at the basis 
of the larger group of disciples, one hundred and 
twenty in number, who appear in Jerusalem, wait- 
ing for the advent of the Spirit, from whom the 
successor of Judas was chosen, 2 and who, equally 
with the Twelve, received the endowment of the 



1 See Messiah of the Gospels, pp. 122 seq. 

2 Acts i. 21-26. 



124 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

divine Spirit. They reappear doubtless in the 
prophets of the Apostolic Church, of whom Bar- 
nabas was the most eminent. How far they 
shared the commission given to the Twelve, the 
Gospels do not inform us. The appearance to 
the five hundred, reported by Paul, could hardly 
have been without some instruction on the part 
of Jesus. We are justified, therefore, in the con- 
clusion that we must assign no inconsiderable 
portion of the teaching of Jesus to His appear- 
ances after His resurrection. It is upon the ex- 
periences of these forty days, as much as upon 
the year and a half of the previous ministry of 
Jesus, that the faith and life of the Apostolic 
Church was grounded. 



XI 

THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 

THE three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and 
Luke, are named the Synoptic Gospels. 
They have so much material that is common, and 
this material is in great measure so alike in sub- 
stance and form, that it is impossible to explain 
it on the basis of independent oral sources. Writ- 
ten sources certainly lie at the basis of a large 
part of the material that is common to them. 

It is agreed by the vast majority of recent 
critics, and it may be regarded as a sure result 
of criticism, that these three Gospels depend 
upon the Logia of St. Matthew, composed, as 
Papias tells us, in the Hebrew language. It is 
also agreed that Mark is the earliest of the three 
Synoptic Gospels, and that Matthew and Luke 
use the original Mark as well as the Logia of St. 
Matthew as their source. When now we come 
to consider the Logia of St. Matthew there are 
several problems that have not yet been solved 
by common consent. 



126 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

1. Notwithstanding Eusebius reports 1 that 
Papias represented that the Logia was written in 
the Hebrew language, a large number of scholars 
insist that by Hebrew he meant Aramaic, the 
language spoken by the Jews of Palestine in the 
time of our Lord. The most prominent advo- 
cate of this opinion in recent times is Dalman. 2 
I myself held that opinion for many years be- 
fore Dalman discussed the subject. But, as I 
said in 1897, 3 " A special study of all the sup- 
posed material of the Logia has since convinced 
me that the original was Hebrew." Resch 4 has 
since given abundant evidence for this opinion, 
in his discussion of the subject and his attempt 
to give the Logia in the original Hebrew. The 
arguments of Dalman, in favor of an Aramaic 
original, seem quite strong, especially to those 
who have not made an independent study of the 
question ; but they amount to no more than an 
Aramaic original of some words of Jesus and 
His disciples. All admit that Jesus and His dis- 



1 Church History, III. , xxiv. 6 ; xxxix. 16. Trans. McGiffert, 
pp. 152, 173. 

2 Dalman, Die Worie Jesus, 1898 ; cf. Meyer, Jesu Mutter- 
sprache, 1896. 

3 Expository Times, June, 1897. 
* Resch, Die Logia Jesu, 1898. 



THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 127 

ciples used the Aramaic in their speech. This is 
not the question ; but it is whether the written 
Logia was in Aramaic or Hebrew. The evi- 
dences for an Aramaic original given by Dalman 
prove no more than Aramaic original speech. 
But the arguments for a Hebrew original, so far 
as they are valid, prove a written Hebrew origi- 
nal, for all admit that Hebrew was not the speech 
of our Lord. 

In fact, it is altogether improbable that Mat- 
thew would have written his Gospel in Aramaic. 
Aramaic was the language of speech and not the 
language of literature. No literature of any 
importance in the Aramaic language is known 
from the times of our Lord. The literary lan- 
guage of all educated Jews in Palestine and the 
East at that time was Hebrew. Anyone who 
could read, could read Hebrew. Hebrew was 
not only the sacred language of the Old Tes- 
tament Scriptures, but also of all the Apoc- 
rypha and Pseudepigrapha, except of the few 
written in Greek for the Hellenistic Jews. The 
sayings of the Jewish Fathers of the times of 
Jesus, and subsequently, are in Hebrew. The 
Mishnayoth and the Baraithoth, the earliest ele- 
ments of the Talmud, and the earliest Commen- 
taries on the Old Testament among the Jews, 



128 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

were written in Hebrew. Indeed it was not until 
many generations after the death of Jesus that 
Aramaic became the literary language of the 
Jews. Therefore there was no motive for com- 
posing a Gospel in Aramaic, and every motive 
for composing it in Hebrew. The Aramaic was 
a language of common speech, but of many dia- 
lects, and there were no great writings of univer- 
sal importance, and no common literature to give 
a common standard for the language throughout 
the Aramaic-speaking world. The language of 
Galilee was rude to the Jerusalemite, that of 
Palestine difficult to understand by the Jews of 
Babylon. But the Hebrew language was the 
common sacred language of the Jewish world, 
and anyone who wished to write a religious 
book, and especially one that would be of an 
authoritative character, was compelled by the 
situation to write it in Hebrew. We should 
have no doubt therefore that the original lan- 
guage of Matthew's Logia was Hebrew. 

2. Another problem of still greater difficulty 
remains unsolved. Resch follows Weiss and 
earlier scholars generally in the opinion that the 
Logia of Matthew gave not only words of Jesus, 
but also historical incidents. 

Here I must differ from him. The Logia, as 



THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 129 

I have attempted to show, 1 was composed en- 
tirely of the Wisdom of Jesus — that is sayings 
in the gnomic poetic form, of the type known 
in the Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes of the 
Old Testament, the Wisdom of Sirach and Wis- 
dom of Solomon of the Apocrypha, and the 
sayings of the Fathers in the Mishna. 2 These 
sayings of Wisdom represent a method of teach- 
ing used by the Rabbis of the time of Jesus, 
which Jesus used and in which He excelled all. 
These logia, or sayings of Wisdom, are given 
by the present Gospel of Matthew in several 
great collections. The chief of these is the so- 
called Sermon on the Mount. 3 The other col- 
lections are the Commission of the Twelve, and 
sayings on their return from their Mission, 4 and 
the Woes against the Pharisees. 5 Luke gives 
this material scattered throughout his Gospel, 
attached frequently to historical incidents, some 
of which are similar to those of Mark. The 
weight of evidence, therefore, is in favor of these 
having been spoken on a great number of occa- 



1 Articles upon the Wisdom of Jesus in the Expository Times 
in 1897. 

2 General Introduction to the Study of Holy Scripture, pp. 
385^. 

3 Matt, v.-vii. i Matt, x., xi. 5 Matt, xxiii. 



130 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

sions as a characteristic of Jesus' teaching, and 
not in three or four great discourses, as Matthew 
arranges them ; and that, therefore, the grouping 
of them in Matthew's Gospel is due to the au- 
thor of that Gospel and not to his source, the 
Logia of Matthew. This is confirmed by the re- 
cently discovered collection of Logia of Jesus, 1 in 
which each one is introduced by " Jesus says : " — 
This peculiarity is preserved frequently in Mark, 
but not in Matthew. On the whole, therefore, 
we may conclude that Luke gives us the logia 
more in accordance with their order and form in 
the Logia of Matthew, although even Luke does 
not hesitate to group them for topical reasons. 
We have already seen 2 that in all probability 
Matthew and Thomas were the apostolic pair 
that accompanied Jesus in the Peraean ministry. 
It is altogether probable, therefore, that Matthew 
in his Logia gave the Pereean logia together and 
the Galilean logia together. It is improbable 
that he gave them all in connection with the 
Galilean ministry, or in connection with the 
Woes on the Pharisees in Passion Week, where 
the present Gospel of Matthew gives them. At 

1 Aoyia Irja-ov, Sayings of our Lord, from an Early Greek 
Papyrus, discovered and edited by Grenfell and Hunt, 1897. 

2 See p. 76. 



THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 131 

the same time it is unlikely that many of them 
had any more than a brief statement of the occa- 
sion ; and it is probable that in many cases they 
were simply introduced by the words — " Jesus 
said" — when it was deemed unimportant to 
mention the incident out of which they sprang. 
Unless this be so, it is difficult to understand, 
and indeed impossible to explain, how the author 
of the present Gospel of Matthew threw away 
such a large number of historical incidents and 
utterly disregarded them, when he gave these 
logia in the several great collections. And this 
is all the more inexplicable that his Gospel bears 
the name of Matthew, because it was supposed 
Matthew's Logia was its essential substance. 
This argument is still more insuperable if, with 
Weiss, Resch, and most scholars, we suppose 
that the Logia comprised so great a portion of 
the historical material given in Matthew and 
Mark. How then can we explain on the one 
hand the drastic way in which Luke attaches so 
great a portion of the logia to incidents of the 
Persean ministry, and on the other hand, the no 
less drastic way in which the author of Matthew's 
Gospel takes the logia out of their historical con- 
nection and gives them in several great groups? 
If we suppose that the Logia of Matthew con- 



132 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

tained so large an amount of historical material 
as Resell gives in his reconstruction, all coming 
from Matthew, an eye-witness, it is difficult to 
see how Luke, the best historian of the New 
Testament, could have taken such liberties with 
a source of so great authority. It is also diffi- 
cult to find a sufficient amount of original ma- 
terial in Mark, not derived from the supposed 
Logia, to justify the tradition, even more 
strongly supported than the authorship of the 
Logia of Matthew, that Mark depended upon 
St. Peter for his source. The historical mate- 
rial given in the Logia of Resch is not very much 
less than what we are obliged to find in the 
original Mark. The conclusion which seems on 
the whole most probable is that the Logia con- 
tained only the Wisdom of Jesus arranged very 
much in the order in which the logia appear in 
Luke, with occasional brief statements of the 
occasion on which they were uttered. 

The historical material of the three Synoptists 
was derived from the original Mark. The gen- 
eral opinion among modern critics is that the 
original Mark differed but slightly from the 
canonical Mark. All admit certain additions, 
the chief of which is the Appendix. 1 Other ad- 

1 Mark xvi. 9 seq. 



THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 133 

ditions here and there must be recognized. Un- 
less the whole of the eschatological discourse 1 
be an addition, we must certainly suppose that 
of the several duplicates contained there, one of 
each is an addition. If the story of the feeding 
of the five thousand 2 is only a variation of the 
feeding of the four thousand, 3 one of them is 
an addition to the Gospel. It is probable that 
the logia respecting the sin against the Holy 
Spirit and of Beelzebub, 4 attached by Matthew 
and Luke 5 to an appropriate historical incident, 
is not only attached by Mark to the wrong inci- 
dent, and at too early a date, against the usage 
of Mark, but is an addition to Mark by a second 
hand. 6 There are several other groups of logia 
that are not in harmony with their context, and 
seem to come from a second hand. Other im- 
portant additions may be detected in other places 
in the Gospel. And so it seems improbable that 
the original Mark used the Logia of Matthew. 
When these additions have all been stripped off, 



1 Mark xiii. 2 Mark vi. 34 seq. 

3 Mark viii. 1 seq. 4 Mark iii. 22-30. 

5 Matt. xii. 22 seq.; Luke xi. 14 seq. 

6 I have made a special study of all the logia used in 
Mark, which I hope soon to publish. The opinion given 
above is the result of that study. 



134 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

there remains a Gospel of considerable bulk, giv- 
ing few discourses of Jesus, but a general outline 
of His brief ministry. Internal evidence confirms 
the ancient tradition that the preaching of Peter 
underlies this Gospel. It knows only of a Gali- 
lean ministry and Passion week in Jerusalem. 
It knows nothing of the ministry in Peraea of 
Luke, or of the Jerusalem ministry of John. 
The reason was that St. Peter confined his testi- 
mony to what he himself had seen and heard. 
He was not with Jesus during the Jerusalem or 
the Peraean ministries, and therefore these do not 
appear in his Gospel. 

The present Mark was prepared for Gentile 
Christians in the Greek language. The question 
now arises as to the language of the original 
Mark. It is the general opinion that St. Mark 
wrote in Greek. But St. Peter and St. Mark 
were both Jews. Hebrew was the language 
that they w r ould use, if the Gospel was written 
originally for Jewish Christians, even if these 
were in Rome. I agree, therefore, with Resch 
that the greater part of the historical material at 
the basis of the Synoptists came from a Hebrew 
source. I disagree with him in that he thinks of 
one source, St. Matthew, whereas I think of 
two, — the Logia of St. Matthew for the Wisdom 



THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 135 

of Jesus, and the Petrine Mark for the Galilean 
ministry and Passion week. These were the 
two written sources of the Synoptists. The 
Greek Mark is a translation of the original Mark 
with an occasional use of the Logia of Matthew, 
and other additions. 

It is also my opinion, which I share with 
Blass, 1 that Mark was the author of the Jerusa- 
lem source of the Book of Acts, written also in 
the Hebrew language, based also on Peter's 
preaching; and that this was a second part, or 
continuation of the Gospel of Mark. 2 

The Greek Gospel of Matthew uses the original 
Mark as the framework for the history, and there- 
fore limits itself to the Galilean ministry and Pas- 
sion week. But it uses also the Logia of St. 
Matthew and arranges the material in great collec- 
tions on the framework of the narrative of Mark. 
The parables of Matthew are additional to Mark. 
Some of them are given by Luke in connection 
with the Persean ministry and derived from oral 
tradition, as their different versions clearly show. 
Matthew also groups these parables about the 



1 Blass, Acta Apost. 1896, s. iv. seq.; Philology of the Gospels, 
1898, pp. 141 seq. See also the earlier query of Weiss, Marcus 
evangelism, 1872, s. 511. 

2 See pp. 112 seq. 



136 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

kindred parables of Mark, making chiefly four 
collections: (1) The parables of the Kingdom, 
(2) The parables of Instruction of the Disciples 
on His last journey to Jerusalem, (3) the para- 
bles attached to the conflict with the Pharisees 
in Passion week, and (4) the parables attached 
to the eschatological discourse. 1 Matthew also 
gives a brief gospel of the infancy of Jesus, 
which we reserve for special consideration. 

The Gospel of Luke uses the same two sources 
as Matthew, only he adds to them material de- 
rived from other sources oral and written. In 
the main he follows the order of Mark in the 
first part of his Gospel, and gives his additional 
material in the second part of his Gospel, before 
the final crisis in Passion week. This additional 
material, while it is composed of several impor- 
tant events, doubtless of the Pereean ministry, 
derived probably from an oral source, is chiefly 
composed of parables and logia. In his use of 
the Logia in the first part of his work, he un- 
doubtedly gives us the correct version of the 
Sermon on the Mount, and the Commission of 
the Twelve ; and so in all probability the proper 
historical connection of the most of the other 

1 See p. 74. 






THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 137 

logia. We may therefore conclude that the 
logia assigned by him to the Peraean ministry 
also for the most part belong there ; and that in 
this he follows the Logia of Matthew, only that 
in the Logia of Matthew, the logia given by 
Luke in the Peraean ministry, detached from 
those which he gives in the Galilean ministry, 
were not so clearly attached to a Peraean minis- 
try and historical incidents, that the author of 
Matthew's Gospel was debarred from using them 
in another connection. The most of the para- 
bles given by Luke in this section of his gospel 
are of a very different character from those 
given in Mark and Matthew. They are parables 
of grace and salvation. They were doubtless 
derived from an oral source, and are most appro- 
priate in the Peraean ministry. I see no reason 
to follow Weiss and think of a written source 
other than the two already given, for this section 
of Luke. The incidents are too few to justify 
such a conclusion. 

Luke gives, in his earlier chapters, an extend- 
ed gospel of the infancy of Jesus, which he must 
have derived from other sources of information 
than those already considered. This we must 
reserve for special consideration. 

And so the three Synoptic Gospels gradually 



138 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

came into existence. The Logia of Matthew 
and the Gospel of St. Mark were the fundamental 
Gospels written in the Hebrew language, having 
apostolic origin from eye- and ear- witnesses of the 
ministry of Jesus. The composition of the other 
Gospels was due in part to the needs of the 
Gentile world, and so these original Gospels were 
translated with explanations. There was also 
an increasing demand for more information as to 
the life and teaching of Jesus, which could be 
satisfied only by searching out other eye-wit- 
nesses and ear- witnesses, who could testify as to 
the things they had seen and heard and knew. 
The author of Matthew's Gospel did but little of 
this ; but Luke, as he himself tells us, was zeal- 
ous and painstaking ; and his Gospel, when com- 
pared with the others, amply justifies and attests 
his own statements. St. Luke wrote last of the 
three. His work was certainly unknown to the 
author of Matthew's Gospel. He wrote his 
Gospel before he wrote the Book of Acts. He 
was the physician and pupil of St. Paul. But 
he was not his companion on his travels as tradi- 
tion has wrongly inferred. According to the 
New Testament he first appears in connection 
with St. Paul at the close of his life in Rome, 1 

1 Col. iv. 14. 



THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM 139 

and therefore was a younger man than tradition 
allows. His Gospel was written subsequent to 
the death of the great apostle; subsequent also, 
as internal evidence shows, to the destruction 
of Jerusalem by the Romans, probably in the 
eighties of the first century. Many of the first 
disciples of Jesus had died, but many others were 
still living — and, indeed, a sufficient number to 
secure testimony of the first historical impor- 
tance. Without the Gospel of Luke a serious 
loss would be felt in our knowledge of the min- 
istry of Jesus. 



XII 

THE COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 

TWO antagonistic views have been battling 
for a century with regard to the composi- 
tion of the Gospel of John. The traditional 
view maintains the authorship of St. John the 
apostle. The view held by most critics is that it 
was the work of a pupil of St. John. Many 
strong, and indeed insuperable arguments are 
adduced in favor of the authorship of St. John. 
Equally numerous, strong, and insuperable ar- 
guments are adduced against his authorship. 
Those who take either side of the controversy 
depreciate and endeavor to explain away and 
avoid the arguments of the other side, but with- 
out success. Neither view has been able to over- 
come the other. The reason, as ought by this 
time to be obvious, is that neither view is cor- 
rect. The problem cannot be solved by either 
side of this debate. Under these circumstances 
it is remarkable that another method was not 
earlier used ; especially as the method of analy- 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 141 

sis has solved so many problems in the Old Tes- 
tament ; and all the more that the problems of 
the Gospels of Matthew and Luke have been 
solved in this way ; and those of the Book of 
Acts are in process of solution. The Book of 
Revelations has also been analyzed into several 
documents. 1 Several of the Epistles, such as 
II. Corinthians and the Pastorals, have been ex- 
plained in this way, and even the closing chapter 
of Romans must be detached from that epistle 
and given an independent value. 2 

The reason why this method has not been 
used to solve the problem of the Fourth Gospel 
is doubtless the striking unity of that Gospel. 
This unity, which is so evident, is indeed an ob- 
struction to the method of analysis ; but it is 
not an insuperable one. The New Testament 
writers use their sources in a different way from 
the Old Testament writers. It is much easier to 
analyze Old Testament books than New Testa- 
ment books for the reason that the Old Tes- 
tament writers preserve the very language of 
their sources, and piece these together by seams 
of their own composition. The New Testament 



1 Messiah of the Apostles, pp. 284 seq. 

2 General Introduction, p. 315. 



142 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

writers, however, use their sources more freely, 
condensing, enlarging, and explaining, and not 
unfrequently rewriting, so as to change the lan- 
guage and style of their originals. 

We have also to consider, in many cases, the 
process of translation from the Hebrew into the 
Greek language. This is evident in the use of 
the poetical logia by Matthew and Luke. It is 
still more the case in the use of the original nar- 
ratives of Mark by Matthew and Luke. Luke 
is much freer in his use of the original Mark 
than Matthew, and he pursues the same method 
in his use of the Jerusalem source of the Book 
of Acts. 

The Book of Acts has indeed as striking a 
unity as the Fourth Gospel. This has made the 
work of analysis more difficult, and has retarded 
it, so that the problem has not yet been fully 
solved ; but it has not prevented critics from 
using this method. Why, then, should the 
unity of the Gospel of John obstruct the analysis 
of that Gospel? No serious attempt to analyze 
the Fourth Gospel was made until recent years, 
when Wendt undertook it. 1 



1 Wendt, Das Johannesevangelium, 1900. Independent of 
Wendt, and prior to the publication of his views, I had tried 
the same method, and I had come to the conclusion that this 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 143 

The very fact that there are such strong and 
convincing arguments both for and against the 
authorship of the Fourth Gospel by St. John, 
raises the question whether the arguments for 
his authorship, so far as they are derived from 
the Gospel itself, may not belong to one strata 
of the Gospel, and the arguments against his au- 
thorship to another strata ? This is indeed the 
true state of the case. When now we apply the 
principles and method of the Higher Criticism 
to the analysis of this Gospel, we find that there 
are linguistic and stylistic differences, differences 
of historical situation, differences of opinion and 
conception, and the arguments from citation and 
from silence are not without forceful representa- 
tion. I cannot, in the space allotted to me in the 
proportions of this volume, undertake a full proof 
of this statement. I shall only give a few speci- 
mens of evidence. 

(1) There is a striking difference in the Gos- 



was the only method by which we could solve the problem of 
the Fourth Gospel. I published my view without argument 
in the first edition of my General Introduction to the Study of 
Holy Scripture, 1899, p- 327. In essentials, I agree in my 
analysis with Wendt. We differ less than the earlier analysts 
of the Hexateuch, notwithstanding the greater difficulty of 
the analysis. 



144 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

pel in the use of crrjiAtia, signs for miracles, 1 and 
the use of ipya, works. 2 All the uses of crrjixela 
are in sections which are clearly from the final 
author, or may be from him. The only instances 
that may be disputed are, Chapter hi. 2, in the 
words of Nicodemus, and Chapters iv. 48, vi. 26, 
in the words of Jesus, both of which are rebukes 
of the people for sign-seeking. Jesus Himself 
always uses epya when speaking of His own mir- 
acles. This is indeed in accordance with the 
usage of the New Testament elsewhere. The 
original Mark and the Logia always use Swa/xets 
for miracles ; arjjjLeia belongs to the later strata, 
especially of Luke. There is, indeed, in these 
strata not only a difference of terms, but also an 
earlier and a later conception of the nature and 
meaning of miracles. 

(2) A difference of historical situation is in- 
volved in the use, for the opponents of Jesus 
in Jerusalem, of the terms Pharisees and Jezvs. 
The Synoptic Gospels use Pharisees for the chief 
opponents of Jesus. So the use of Pharisees in 
the Fourth Gospel belongs to the original strata, 



1 John ii. 11, 18, 23, iii. 2, iv. 48, 54, vi. 2, 14, 26, 30, vii. 
31, ix. 16, x. 41, xi. 47, xii. 18, 37, xx. 30. 

2 John v. 20, 36, vii. 3, 21, ix. 3, 4, x. 25, 32, 33, 37, 38, 
xiv. 10, 11, 12, xv. 24. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 145 

but the common use of Jews for the enemies 
belongs to a later strata, and indeed indicates a 
historical situation, when the distinction between 
Jew and Christian had been so sharpened that 
the Jew, as such, was hostile to Christ and 
Christianity. The apostle St. John could never 
have so written about his countrymen — he, least 
of all the apostles, because of his intimate asso- 
ciation with families in Jerusalem. 

(3) A difference of doctrinal conception is rec- 
ognized by most scholars in the dogmatic elabo- 
ration of the discourse of Jesus to Nicodemus, 1 
and of the Baptist. 2 But such dogmatic exposi- 
tions of conversations of Jesus are characteristic 
of the Gospel and appear in most of the sections. 
Thus in John v. 28, 29, we have a distinct pre- 
diction of a universal resurrection, which is at- 
tached to another and entirely different concep- 
tion of resurrection. In the Synoptists there is 
no reference to a resurrection of the wicked. 
Without these verses the Fourth Gospel agrees 
with the Synoptists. With them, it agrees with 
the latest strata of the New Testament. There 
can be little doubt that this is a dogmatic addi- 



1 John iii, 16-21. See Messiah of the Apostles, pp. 515 seq. 

2 John iii. 31-36. 



146 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

tion to the original Gospel. The situation at this 
feast was not so grave as this writer represents. 
Jesus had not yet asserted His divinity as this 
author thinks, when he says, "For this cause 
therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, 
because he not only brake the Sabbath, but also 
called God his own Father, making himself equal 
with God." 1 

A considerable amount of the work of the 
author of the present Gospel may easily be 
detected and removed. But after that has been 
done we cannot say that he has left the Gospel 
in its original form. He has indeed rewritten 
the original, even to a greater extent than Luke 
rewrote his sources. This is evident in the use 
of the few logia preserved in the Fourth Gospel, 
where the words and expressions are sometimes 
entirely different from those of the Synoptists, 
and the gnomic form has disappeared. 2 The 
same is true of the conversations of Jesus and 
His longer discourses, and even with the his- 
torical incidents. At the same time, even 
here, careful criticism may distinguish the final 
author's handiwork, and detect the original Gos- 
pel which underlies it. This rewriting of the 



1 John v. 18. 2 See General Introduction , pp. 69-70. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 147 

original was probably due to the fact that the 
original Gospel was in the Hebrew language, 
and it had become necessary to translate it into 
Greek. Matthew and Luke use the Logia of 
St. Matthew, and the original Mark, in a similar 
way. All three of the primitive Gospels were 
written by Hebrews in the Hebrew language, 
with which they were familiar, and for the use of 
Jewish Christians. In fact the Gospel of John, 
especially in those parts which belong to the 
earliest strata, is in some respects the most 
Hebraistic of the Gospels. In none of them are 
there so many explanations of Hebrew and Ara- 
maic words and phrases. 

If then we may distinguish an original Gospel 
of John underlying the Fourth Gospel, very 
much as we distinguished a Gospel of Matthew 
underlying the first Gospel, the several remain- 
ing problems become easier of solution. It is 
evident that the original Gospel closed with : 1 
"Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the 
presence of the disciples, which are not written 
in this book: but these are written, that ye may 
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; 
and that believing ye may have life in his name" 



1 John xx. 30-31. 



148 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

Chapter xxi., as is generally agreed, was a sub- 
sequent addition, and, as we may now say, by 
a third hand ; for the concluding verses * evi- 
dently came not from the apostle St. John but 
from the second hand ; as it uses the term 
o-yjjjiela, expressing clearly the dogmatic intent 
of the author, and the chief aim of the book, not 
only to show that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son 
of God, but that life is through faith in Him. 

The Prologue, as I have shown elsewhere, 2 is 
a hymn to the Logos, composed independently 
of the Gospel, and prefixed to it. In the present 
Gospel it is interwoven with the introduction to 
the story of the Baptist, destroying in part its 
metrical form. It is probable that it was not 
attached to the original Gospel, but was pre- 
fixed by the second hand, and interwoven by the 
third hand. 

When now we turn to the Gospel as left by 
the second hand, with the hymn to the Logos 
prefixed, it begins, as Mark does, with a brief 
account of the preparatory ministry of the Bap- 
tist, and concludes with the appearance of Jesus, 
after the resurrection, to the Eleven in Jerusalem. 



1 John xx. 30-31. 

2 See Messiah of the Apostles, pp. 495-515. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 149 

We have in our previous studies seen abun- 
dant evidence that the material is not arranged 
in chronological order in the present Gospel. 1 
It is important that we should briefly restate the 
case, and consider whether the present order is 
due to the original author or to the second hand. 

The story of the naming of St. Peter is at- 
tached to the first meeting of Jesus with An- 
drew, his brother, before the first Galilean min- 
istry, 2 when it properly belongs, according to 
the Synoptists, at the close of the Galilean 
ministry, in connection with the Confession 
at Cassarea Philippi. 3 The conversation with 
Nathanael, with its distinct statement and recog- 
nition of the Messiahship of Jesus, 4 is undoubt- 
edly also too early to be harmonized with the 
attitude of the disciples during the early part of 
Jesus' ministry, according to the Synoptists. 
The Fourth Gospel aims to prove the Messiah- 
ship of Jesus, at the very beginning of the Gos- 
pel, and it places the calling of disciples, all that 
are mentioned, in one place at the beginning, 
doubtless for topical reasons. If this order was 
in the original Gospel of John, we must recog- 



1 See pp. 10, 45, 47, 50 seq. 2 John i. 40-42. 

3 See General Introduction, pp. 514 seq. * John i. 49. 



150 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

nize that St. John had the same motive as his 
pupil, who revised and edited his work. But 
this is improbable, for there is an implicit incon- 
sistency between the assured faith of these dis- 
ciples prior to the ministry, and their expression 
of that faith after testing. 1 The latter is more 
in accord with the Synoptists, and intrinsically 
more probable. 

The cleansing of the temple is given 2 at a 
Passover usually regarded as the first of Jesus' 
ministry. The same event is given by the Synop- 
tists at the last Passover. It is improbable that 
this event occurred twice. Jesus would not 
have been so imprudent as to force an issue, and 
so sharp and perilous an issue, at so early a 
date in His ministry. Furthermore the implicit 
reference to His death and resurrection 3 is too 
early to be reconciled with Synoptic statements. 
And the reflection of the author 4 that many 
believed Him because they had seen the 0-77/ieia, 
that He wrought, is out of place at so early 
a date, when the only sign thus far wrought, 
according even to the Gospel of John, was at 
Cana of Galilee, at a marriage feast whose only 
witnesses were the guests of the occasion. 

1 John vi. 66-69. 2 John ii. 13-25. 

3 John ii. 19-22. 4 John ii. 23. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 151 

The report of the Fourth Gospel itself, there- 
fore, is inconsistent with this early placing of the 
event. The motive, again, is to give a distinct 
and public assertion of His Messiahship, as ac- 
cepted by many in Jerusalem, near the beginning 
of the Gospel, immediately after the showing 
forth of His power at Cana of Galilee. 

The conversation with Nicodemus, 1 even after 
it has been stripped of its later dogmatic addi- 
tions, is still out of place. It doubtless is not in 
chronological order. It could not be earlier than 
the reference to Nicodemus at the feast of Tab- 
ernacles. 2 It is placed by Tatian much later. 
The motive for the present placing of the story is 
to set forth the impression made by Jesus upon 
a member of the Sanhedrim. 

The story of the journey through Samaria and 
the proclaiming of His Messiahship by Jesus, 
and the faith of the Samaritans in Him, 3 is cer- 
tainly too early — too early for such an assertion 
of His Messiahship, and too early for a journey 
through Samaria northward, which implies a 



1 John iii. 1-21. 

2 John vii. 50-52. The statement in parentheses, " he that 
came to him before, being one of them/' verse 50, is from the 
second or third hand. 

3 John iv. 4-42. 



152 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

peril which did not exist until after the resurrec- 
tion of Lazarus. 1 The motive for its present 
place in the Gospel is to set forth the acceptance 
of Jesus as the Messiah by the Samaritans. 

The story of the healing of the nobleman's 
son 2 was probably not in the original John, be- 
cause its difference from the corresponding event 
described in the Synoptic Gospels is so great 
that it indicates not only different oral tradition, 
but also a form of statement which could hardly 
have come from St. John the apostle, who was 
familiar with Capernaum, and was an eye-witness 
of the event, according to the Synoptists. 

Thus far the Fourth Gospel has set forth the 
acceptance of Jesus as Messiah by the Baptist, 
by several disciples, by Nicodemus, a member of 
the Sanhedrim, by Galileans, Judeeans, and Sa- 
maritans. The author now tells of a series of 
conflicts with the unbelievers. The story be- 
gins in Jerusalem, Chapter v., then is transferred 
to Galilee, Chapter vi., only to return to Jerusa- 
lem from Chapter vii. until the end. 

Chapter v. begins with a reference to an in- 
definite feast. 3 All the other feasts are definite, 
why not this ? It is improbable that St. John, 

1 See pp. 91 seq. 2 John iv. 46-54. 3 See p. 51. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 153 

from whom the statements as to the other feasts 
came, did not know what this feast was. We 
can only think that the author of the present 
Gospel took this incident from a connection, in 
which the feast was defined, and gave it a posi- 
tion in his narrative apart from its historical in- 
troduction. Otherwise the statement as to the 
feast came from a supposition of the author, 
without being in his original. At all events, 
Chapter vi. is out of place chronologically. It 
should come after Chapter xi. Its present posi- 
tion is topical, to give the Galilean rejection be- 
fore devoting attention to the great struggle in 
Jerusalem. It is improbable that this was the 
order of the original John. 

Chapters vii.-x. give a series of controversial 
dialogues between Jesus and the Pharisees in 
Jerusalem, separated by accounts of two jour- 
neys to Jerusalem, one to Tabernacles, one to 
Dedication; and supplemented, Chapter xi., by a 
third journey to the raising of Lazarus. These 
three events are doubtless in the order given. 
But it does not by any means follow that all of 
the material of these chapters was originally in 
the order in which it now appears. Chapter vii. 
37-52 gives a discourse on the last and great day 
of the feast of Tabernacles, followed by a delibera- 



154 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

tion of the Sanhedrim respecting Jesus. It is 
rather remarkable that this is followed by Chap- 
ter viii.-x. 21, before the material connected with 
the feast of Dedication. The feast of Taber- 
nacles having closed, it was natural that Jesus 
should depart with the multitudes from Jerusa- 
lem, and there is reason to think that the first 
Persean ministry immediately followed that feast. 1 
It is also improbable that Jesus would have re- 
mained in Jerusalem after the crisis reported at 
the close of Chapter viii. 

Moreover, the material of these chapters seems 
at too early a date for the development of the 
conflict with the Pharisees. 2 This material is 
better suited to the situation at the feast of 
Dedication than to the situation at the feast of 
Tabernacles several months before. 

In the present text Chapter viii. begins with 
the story of the woman taken in adultery, 3 when 
Jesus enters into the temple from the Mount of 
Olives, just as He did in Passion week daily, 
according to the Synoptists. It is agreed by all 
critics that this is a late addition to the Gospel — 
later indeed than the additions of the third hand. 
But the very fact, that it was inserted here in 



1 See p. 67. 2 See pp. 83 seq. 3 John viii. 1-11. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 155 

some early manuscript, makes it evident that a 
gap in the Gospel was detected just at this point. 

The distinct reference to His death 1 implies 
greater peril than any yet experienced, and is 
more suited to the peril of the feast of Dedica- 
tion. The denunciation of His opponents, 2 the 
statement of His pre-existence, 3 and the attempt 
of the people to stone Him for blasphemy 4 also 
seem better suited to that occasion when He 
was doomed, and had no longer any reason for 
reserve or caution. The story of healing the man 
born blind, Chapter ix., and its consequences, is 
also more suited to the latter date. Chapter x. 
1-21, the allegory of the Good Shepherd, is in- 
deed implied in x. 26-29, and probably originally 
preceded it. The attempt at stoning, x. 31, seems 
to be the same as that of viii. 59. The separa- 
tion of this material was doubtless due to the 
second author, as more suited to his dogmatic re- 
flections, and it can hardly be ascribed to the 
original Gospel of John. 

Chapters xiii.-xvii. give a connected series of 
discourses of Jesus with His disciples on Passion 
eve. But there is a break at the close of Chap- 



1 John viii. 12-29, * John viii. 30-50. 

3 John viii. 51-58. 4 John viii. 59. 



156 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

ter xiv., where Jesus is represented as saying: 
" Arise, let us go hence'' It is remarkable that 
discourses with the disciples continue through 
Chapters xv., xvi., concluding with a final prayer 
of Jesus for His disciples, Chapter xvii. When 
these discourses are examined critically it is evi- 
dent that we have a complexity of material not 
altogether suited to the situation on the eve of 
the Passion. The dogmatic intent of the author 
is evident in his additions to the discussions of 
Jesus and His disciples. 

Chapter xvii. and a considerable amount of 
material in the previous chapters suit much bet- 
ter a post-resurrection situation in connection 
with the final commission of the disciples ; and 
the prayer is best suited to the last interview 
with the disciples just prior to the ascension, as 
reported in Luke. 1 

It is evident, therefore, that the discourses of 
Jesus and the few historical incidents in the 
Fourth Gospel are arranged with a dogmatic 
purpose and in a topical order. Nothing can be 
more unsafe than to treat them as in chrono- 
logical order. The arrangement of modern har- 
monists and authors of the life of Jesus, which is 

1 See p. 121. 



COMPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 157 

based upon this theory of the chronological order 
of the Fourth Gospel, is, therefore, altogether 
wrong. It obstructs the way to an understand- 
ing of the development in the life of Jesus, and 
fills the whole story with darkness and confusion. 
It is not surprising that many moderns disregard 
the Fourth Gospel altogether in their studies of 
the life of Jesus. 

If, however, we abandon this error, use the 
material of the Fourth Gospel, after the example 
of the earliest harmonist, Tatian, as in topical 
order, and then seek to arrange it where it best 
fits into the narratives of the Synoptists; or if 
we use all the material of the Fourth Gospel, 
without prejudice as to its chronological order, 
with the other Gospels as common sources for 
an arrangement of the material as it best suits 
all the conditions of the problem, a new light 
breaks forth upon the whole, and the material 
falls naturally into an orderly development and 
a harmonious historical narrative. 

If the results thus far obtained are correct, not 
the apostle St. John, but his pupil is responsible 
for the structure of the Fourth Gospel. He 
uses the original Hebrew Gospel of St. John 
as his source, just as the author of the Gospel 
of Matthew uses the original Gospel of St. 



158 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

Matthew as his source ; but the order of the dis- 
courses of Jesus in the original Gospel of St. 
John is even more clouded than the order of the 
logia in the original Gospel of St. Matthew. 
Their historical order we may determine partly 
from incidental statements contained therein; 
but chiefly from the interrelation of their teach- 
ings and their appropriate fitting into the events 
of the life of Jesus after these have taken their 
place in the narrative. 



XIII 

THE GOSPEL OF THE INFANCY 

THE Gospels of Mark and John agree in 
having no gospel of the Infancy of Jesus. 
This was due doubtless to a lack of* interest in 
that part of the life of* Jesus, as well as to the 
fact that both of these Gospels seem to be 
limited to the testimony of what the primary 
authorities themselves had seen and heard — St. 
Peter in Mark, and St. John in the Gospel of 
John — that is, in both Gospels in their original 
forms. 

The later editors, doubtless owing to a more 
dogmatic interest, thinking of Jesus as the Son 
of God and divine, had still less interest in the 
infancy of Jesus. The Gospel of the Infancy is 
confined to a brief statement in Matthew i. 18— ii. 
to which a genealogy of Jesus is prefixed ; and a 
fuller statement, Luke i.-ii. to which a genealogy 
is appended, iii. 23-38, the ministry of John 
being inserted, iii, 1-22. 

The fact, that in both cases the gospel of the 



160 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

Infancy is attached to genealogies shows an in- 
terest in proving that Jesus was the Son of 
David, the heir of the promises to David and 
his seed, and so the Messiah. The fact that 
Luke's genealogy goes back to Adam shows a 
human interest, and a universalism characteristic 
of the Roman disciple of St. Paul. The stories of 
the Infancy, told by Matthew, were all to show 
that Jesus was the Messiah of Prophecy: 1 (1) 
The annunciation to Joseph and birth of Jesus, 
as the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah 
respecting Emmanuel ; 2 (2) The adoration of 
the Magi, as the fulfilment of the prophecy of 
Micah that the Messiah would be born in 
Bethlehem ; 3 (3) The blood-bath of Bethlehem 
and flight into Egypt, as fulfilling the prophecy 
of Jeremiah, of Rachel weeping for her children ; 
and the prediction of Hosea that — "out of 
Egypt did I call my son ;" 4 (4) The return to 
Nazareth, as fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 5 
that He should be called a Nazarene. 

It is evident that none of this was found in 
the original Gospels of Matthew or Mark. These 

1 Messiah of the Gospels, pp. 318 seq. 

2 Matt. i. 18-25 ; Is. vii. 14. 8 Matt. ii. 1-12 ; Mic.v.2. 
* Matt. ii. 13-18 ; Jer. xxxi. 15 ; Hos. xi. 1, 

5 Matt. ii. 19-23 ; Is. xi. 1. 



THE GOSPEL OF THE INFANCY 161 

are all additions inserted by the author of the 
canonical Matthew. This conception of the ful- 
filment of Old Testament prophecy by these 
events as stated by this author, is doubtless a 
crude interpretation of the Old Testament Script- 
ure. 1 We may, however, find a sufficient num- 
ber of parallels in the Rabbinical methods of the 
time. We are to explain them, therefore, not in 
accordance with modern principles of interpreta- 
tion, but in accordance with those principles 
which were in use in the times of Jesus. 2 

Did these stories come from an oral source or 
from a written source ? Matt. i. 20-21 gives a 
little piece of poetry. This is not complete in 
itself. It was taken from a longer poem. Its 
contents show that the longer poem contained a 
fuller account of the story of the annunciation to 
Joseph. We may therefore say that the story 
of the annunciation to Joseph and the birth of 
Jesus was taken from this poem and given by 
the author of our Matthew in prose with the ex- 
ception of this extract. This piece has the par- 
allelisms and measures of Hebrew poetry. We 
may therefore conclude that there was a poem in 



\ 



1 Messianic Prophecy, pp. 63 seq. 

2 General Introduction, pp. 436 seq. 



162 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

the Hebrew language, which has been translated 
for the present Gospel. The other stories do not 
contain such poetic extracts, and therefore we 
cannot use the same argument for a written 
source. But they are Hebraistic in style. It is 
possible that these also were in the same poem; 
but we have no evidence of it, in their composi- 
tion or their context. They may therefore have 
come from an oral source. The use that is made 
of them in the canonical Matthew, to show that 
Jesus was the Messiah of Prophecy, we may 
safely say, was not in the source, whether oral or 
written, but was due to the author of the Gospel 
himself. 

The fullest report of the story of the Infancy 
of Jesus is given in Luke. This story is com- 
posed of a number of pieces of poetry. The 
prose narrative gathers about these ; and is 
chiefly of'the nature of seams to build the poetry 
together into a harmonious story. These poems 
are: (1) The Annunciation to Zacharias, 1 a tri- 
meter poem in the original Hebrew in two 
strophes of different lengths evidently incomplete 
in the translation. (2) The Annunciation to 
Mary, 2 four pieces of trimeter poetry of different 



1 Luke i. 13-17. 2 Luke i. 28, 30-33, 35-37, 38. 



THE GOSPEL OF THE INFANCY 163 

lengths connected by seams, evidently incom- 
plete in their present form. (3) The Annuncia- 
tion to the Shepherds, 1 two pieces of trimeter 
poetry evidently extracts from a larger piece. 
(4) The Song of Elizabeth, 2 and (5) the Song of 
of the Virgin, the Magnificat of the Church, 3 
both trimeter poems, more complete than the 
others, but probably also incomplete. (6) The 
Song of Zacharias, the Benedictus of the Church. 4 
This seems to be of the pentameter movement. 
It is uncertain whether we should divide it into 
five or into two strophes. It is the most com- 
plete of the poems, but it is by no means certain 
that the whole of it has been preserved. (7) The 
Song of Simeon 5 is a trimeter poem, which is cer- 
tainly incomplete in the parts of two strophes 
that have been preserved. This is the Nunc 
Dimittis of the Church. 

These seven pieces of poetry are a series of 
annunciations and of songs of gratitude and 
praise, all with marked characteristics of Hebrew 
poetry, not only in form but in the style and 
substance of the thought. They are not com- 
plete in themselves, but extracts from poems. 



1 Luke ii. 10-12, 14. 2 Luke i. 42-45. 

8 Luke i. 46-55. 4 Luke i. 68-79. 

6 Luke ii. 29-32, 34-35. 



164 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

This raises the question whether they were not 
originally parts of larger poems, rather than each 
from different and independent poems. Six of 
them have the same trimeter movement, and 
may be all from the same poem. One of them 
is a pentameter, like the pentameter preserved 
in Matthew, 1 and therefore both of these may be 
from the same poem. May we, therefore, think 
of two long poems, each giving a poetic account 
of the birth and infancy of Jesus ? Or are we to 
think of a number of little poems each taking up 
a different theme ? It seems more probable that 
we have to think of two original poems of this 
kind, the one chiefly used by Matthew, the other 
chiefly used by Luke. At all events, so far as 
Luke is concerned, his story of the Infancy is 
nothing more than a prose setting for these 
seven poetic pieces given by him. These poems 
were certainly originally in Hebrew ; they w r ere 
also certainly before him in written documents, 
one or more. They were written sources as 
truly as the original Mark, and the original Mat- 
thew, — all alike in the Hebrew language. They 
must have been composed before the destruction 
of Jerusalem, either in the Christian congrega- 



1 Matt. i. 20-21. 



THE GOSPEL OF THE INFANCY 165 

tion of Jerusalem, or the Christian community in 
Galilee; therefore by early Christian poets who 
had access to the family of Jesus, certainly to His 
brother James the head of the Jerusalem Church, 
and possibly also to the Virgin Mother of our 
Lord ; and to others who could speak as eye- 
witnesses or ear- witnesses of these matters em- 
bodied in verse. Making every allowance for the 
poetic form, style, and conception, these poems 
are sources of the highest value, and of the first 
degree of historic importance, as belonging with 
the original Hebrew Gospels of Mark, Mat- < 
thew, and John, rather than with the later Gos- 
pels of Matthew, Luke, and John, as we now 
have them. 

They give us information as to the Infancy of 
Jesus, and as to the Virgin Mother, which is 
necessary to complete the story of their lives and 
to give us a complete understanding of their 
character. Indeed this gospel of the Infancy 
as enshrined not only in the first and third Gos- 
pels, but also in the Canticles of the Church de- 
rived from them, has had more influence upon 
Christian worship, and no less influence upon 
Christian doctrine, than the more dogmatic 
statements of the Epistles. There is no sound \ 
reason to reject it as merely legendary, in its 



166 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

material. There is every reason to accept it as 
giving a valid and essentially historic account 
of the Infancy of our Lord, so far as it could 
be reasonably expected in poetic forms. 



XIV 

OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 

THE solution given of the several prob- 
lems considered in the previous chap- 
ters enables us to arrange the material given in 
the four Gospels respecting the life of Jesus in 
the following outline. 

I. The birth and early life of Jesus. 

The Gospels of Mark and John agree in giv- 
ing only incidental references to the early life of 
Jesus. Mark simply tells us that Jesus was a 
carpenter, the Son of Mary, and that He had 
brothers and sisters. He was of the royal line 
of David and heir to the Messianic promise. 1 
John tells us that He was a Son of Joseph, hav- 
ing mother and brethren. 2 These Gospels defi- 
nitely set forth the divinity of Christ and have 
no interest in His human development. In this 
they agree with the Epistles of St. Paul, which 
represent that Jesus was born of a woman, of 

1 Mark iii. 31, vi. 3, x. 47. 

2 John i. 45, ii. 1-12, vi. 42, vii. 3-10, xix. 25-27. 



168 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

the seed of David and Abraham, an Israelite 
according to the flesh, in the likeness of sinful 
flesh ; under the Jewish Law, and that He had 
brothers. 1 But St. Paul clearly teaches the pre- 
existence of Christ, and that His entrance into 
the world was from a pre- existent and divine 
state. 2 

Almost all that we know of the early life 
of Jesus is derived from Matthew and Luke. 
According to these Gospels, the angel Gabriel 
appeared to the Virgin Mary betrothed to Jo- 
seph of the royal line of David, and announced 
that she had been chosen of God to conceive 
and bear the Messiah, and that He was to be 
named Jesus. Mary was overshadowed by a 
theophanic cloud and conceived Jesus by the 
energy of the divine Spirit. 3 Joseph, instructed 
by an angel, marries Mary after her conception 
of Jesus and brings up Jesus as his son and 
heir. 4 Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the birth- 
place of David, a year or two before the death 
of Herod the Great. Joseph went up with his 
wife to Bethlehem, from their home in Nazareth, 



1 Gal. i. 19, iii. 16, iv. 4, 5; 1 Cor. ix. 5; Rom. i. 3, viii. 1—4, 
ix. 5; 2 Tim. ii. 8. 

2 The Incarnation of the Lord, pp. 83 seq. 

8 Luke i. 26-38. * Matt. i. 18-25. 



OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 169 

because it was necessary that he should be regis- 
tered in his ancestral home according to the de- 
cree of Augustus. The city being overcrowded 
he was compelled to lodge in a stable ; so that 
when Jesus was born, He was cradled in a 
manger. His birth was accompanied by a 
theophany to the shepherds of Bethlehem, an- 
nouncing the birth of the Messiah, and leading 
them to the cradle of the infant Jesus. 1 Jesus 
was circumcised and named on the eighth day J 
after birth, and was presented to God in the 
temple as the first-born son on the fortieth day 
after birth, with sacrifices which imply the 
limited resources of His parents at the time. 
The presentation was accompanied with a recog- 
nition of His Messiahship by Simeon and Anna. 2 
Wise men from the East were guided by a 
theophany in the form of a star to Bethlehem, 
whither they came to worship Jesus as the new- 
born Messianic king. The jealousy of Herod 
the king was excited, and, warned by God, 
Joseph and Mary escaped from the blood-bath 
of Bethlehem, in which Herod hoped he had 
slain the infant Jesus in the midst of the 
others. They fled to Egypt, where they re- 

1 Luke ii. 1-20. * Luke ii. 21-38. 



170 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

mained until the death of Herod. Then they 
returned to Palestine ; but not to Bethlehem, 
for fear of Archelaus, Herod's son; but to their 
former home in Nazareth. 1 And now a veil is 
drawn over the life of Jesus, until He was twelve 
years of age when, in accordance with the Law, 
He made His first Passover in Jerusalem. He 
had grown in strength, wisdom and grace. And 
He was so intent upon learning from the wise 
men of Jerusalem that He was left behind by 
His parents when they started on their return 
to Nazareth. When they missed Him they 
returned to Jerusalem and found Him in the 
temple with the rabbis, hearing them and ask- 
ing them questions. His words to His parents 
on that occasion make it evident that He was 
conscious that He was the Son of God in a 
special sense and that He was called to do His 
Father's business. 2 But He was also conscious 
that His time had not yet come, and so He 
returned with His parents and remained subject 
to them until He had reached full maturity. 3 
Indeed He did not begin His ministry until He 
was about thirty years of age. Thus, about 



1 Matt. ii. 22-23. 

2 The Incarnation of the Lord, pp. 42-44. 

3 Luke ii. 40-52. 



OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 171 

eighteen years He remained in obscurity in 
Nazareth, conscious all the time of His divine 
mission, and yet waiting patiently for the time 
when He should begin it. During this period 
He was, as the carpenter's son, Himself a car- 
penter, engaged in daily labor with His hands. 1 
In this respect, however, He was doing what the 
most distinguished rabbis of the time had done ; 
for it was an established principle that each 
should learn some trade or handiwork, and the 
highest studies were not incompatible with daily 
labor. So St. Paul was a tent-maker, although 
certainly trained to the highest degree in the 
learning of his times. There can be no doubt 
that the boy who, at twelve, appeared in the 
temple, so inquiring, so self-contained, and so 
assured of His mission, spent these eighteen 
years in the study of the Holy Scriptures and in 
all other learning that was accessible to Him. 
His wisdom as manifested in His sentences is 
more precious in form as well as in substance, 
than all the wisdom of Israel. His skill in 
argument as shown in all His discussions with 
the Pharisees ; His wonderful parables excelling 
all the Haggadistic teaching of the greatest rab- 



1 Matt. xiii. 55 ; Mark vi. 3. 



172 NEW LIGHT OX THE LIFE OF JESUS 

bis of Israel, make it evident that Jesus had 
made Himself master of all that the rabbis of 
His time had to teach Him and that He easily 
surpassed them all. 

During this period Joseph had probably died. 
He was evidently somewhat advanced in life 
when he married Mary. He had at that time 
children, sons and daughters, from an earlier 
marriage. There is no good reason to doubt 
the earliest traditions that Mary retained her 
perpetual virginity, that Jesus was her only 
Son, and that Joseph respected her as the conse- 
crated Mother of the Messiah. 

II. Introductory Ministry, 

Jesus began His ministry when He was about 
thirty years of age. 1 He was prepared for it by 
His forerunner, John the Baptist, who was a 
near relative of Jesus on the mother's side, a 
priest by descent, consecrated from birth to be a 
prophet like Jeremiah and Ezekiel before him. 
He preached in the valley of the Jordan, partly 
in Judaea and partly in Pereea, declaring that 
the kingdom of God was at hand, that the 
advent of God and the Messiah was near. He 

1 Luke iii. 23 



OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 173 

called to repentance and sealed the repentance 
with the anointing of Baptism. 1 

Jesus, probably after His return from the 
feast of Tabernacles, goes to the Baptist to re- 
ceive Baptism. The theophany of the heavenly 
Voice and the Dove convinced the Baptist that 
Jesus was the Messiah : and gave Jesus Himself 
the consecration to His ministry. 2 Under the 
power of the divine Spirit, and in the ecstatic 
state, He remained forty days in the wilderness 
of Judaea, absorbed in prayer and meditation. 
At the close of this time He undergoes tempta- 
tions, all directed to the one point of forcing the 
issue by a premature assertion of His Messiah- 
ship in accordance with the expectations of His 
times. Jesus overcomes these temptations and 
enters upon His ministry with the same self- 
poised, patient and determined purpose that He 
manifested eighteen years before. He will be 
guided by the divine Spirit upon Him in all His 
work. He will not make His mission of none 
effect by precipitancy and unwisdom. 

Immediately after the temptation Jesus re- 
turns to the Jordan, where He is recognized by 
the Baptist as the Messiah. Two of the disci- 



1 Luke iii. 1-18. 2 Matt. iii. 13-iv. 11 ; John i. 32-34. 



174 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

pies of the Baptist, Andrew, and probably John, 
are transferred to Jesus. 1 On the next day 
Philip is called to follow Him. 2 With these 
disciples He goes to Cana of Galilee where He 
works His first miracle. 3 The disciples return 
for a short time to their homes, and Jesus doubt- 
less also, to His own home at Nazareth. But 
in a few days He goes to the shore of the Sea 
of Galilee and summons the four fishermen to 
abandon all and follow Him. 4 

A Sabbath of teaching and miracles in Ca- 
pernaum soon follows. 5 

Jesus retires to a desert place to pray, 6 and then 
makes His first tour in Galilee preaching in the 
synagogues and working miracles. 7 

In Capernaum, He heals a paralytic. 8 Soon 
after He calls Matthew, the publican, to be His 
disciple. 9 After a farewell supper, at the house 
of Matthew, Jesus leaves Galilee and rejoins the 
Baptist in the valley of the Jordan, and the two 
preach and baptize side by side for a short time. 
Differences, however, soon emerge between the 
disciples of Jesus and the disciples of the Bap- 



1 John i. 29-42. 2 John i. 43. 3 John ii. 1-11 

4 Mark i. 16-20. 6 Mark i. 21-34. 6 Mark i. 35. 

7 Mark i. 35-45. 8 Mark ii. 1-12. 

9 Mark ii. 13-17 ; Matt. ix. 9-13. 



OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 175 

tist, and the Pharisees take advantage of the 
situation to excite disputes as to purification 
and fasting and possibly other matters. But 
the Baptist recognizes that Jesus is his superior. 
Jesus must increase while he decreases. His 
preparatory work is wellnigh done. The One 
for whom he prepared is now at work. 1 Jesus 
is now more successful in winning disciples than 
the Baptist. 

The attention of the Pharisees is called to 
Jesus and their jealousy is excited. Accordingly 
after attending the feast of Passover Jesus pru- 
dently returns to Galilee. If we allow two 
months for the time from Tabernacles to the 
first departure of Jesus to Galilee after leaving 
John, we may allow two months for the intro- 
ductory Galilean ministry, and one month for 
His work with the Baptist in the valley of the 
Jordan before Passover. 

III. The Galilean Ministry. 

Jesus now begins in earnest. Thus far He 
has worked more under the shadow of the Bap- 
tist. The centre of the ministry has been where 
John was baptizing in the Jordan. Very soon 



1 John iii. 22-30 ; Mark ii. 18-$ 



176 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

after Jesus' return to Galilee, the Baptist was 
arrested and imprisoned, and his work brought 
suddenly to an end. Jesus therefore becomes 
the chief, and we may say the only, prophet to 
whom all eyes were now directed. His minis- 
try in Galilee up to this time had been only 
preparatory, teaching in the synagogues and 
working cures. Xow He proclaims with more 
vigor than the Baptist the advent of the king- 
dom and the call to repentance. 

1. The first incident of this second period of 
Galilean ministry is the plucking of grain from 
the standing crops, by His disciples immediately 
after Passover on the sabbath. The Pharisees 
charge Him with violating the sabbath. The 
first of the sabbath conflicts begins and the bat- 
tle with the Pharisees is now on, which is one of 
the most marked features of Jesus' life. Soon 
after He teaches the multitudes by the Sea of 
Galilee, and uses a boat to take Him from place 
to place. 1 He has, in the meantime, called 
many other disciples than those six whose calls 
have been mentioned thus far, and from these 
He selects a group of Twelve, and gives them a 
discourse of Consecration which is known as the 

1 Mark in. 7 seq. 



OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 177 

Sermon on the Mount. 1 Soon after He heals 
the centurion's servant. 2 This is only a varia- 
tion of the nobleman's son. 3 He also raises the 
widow's son from the dead. 4 These are doubt- 
less only specimens of many miracles and a 
great abundance of teaching during the fifty 
days from Passover to Pentecost. At the close 
of this period messengers came from the Bap- 
tist, who, shut up in prison and hearing of the 
works of Jesus, was somewhat perplexed. He 
had no doubt of Jesus' Messiahship. But the 
Messianic ideals of the Old Testament are so 
complex, the relation of the divine Advent to 
the several different conceptions of the Messiah 
is so obscure, that it was quite natural that the 
Baptist should raise the question whether Jesus 
was in all respects the one he had heralded, and 
whether Jesus was not perhaps one of several 
Messiahs, and another, not yet come, was to 
fulfil the other ideals. 5 Jesus calls the attention 
of the Baptist to His works of preaching and 
His miracles, evidently pointing him to the Mes- 
sianic prophet of the Second Isaiah. 6 We must 



1 Mark iii. 13-19 ; Matt, v. -vii.; Luke vi. 20-49. 

2 Luke vii. 1-10. 3 John iv. 46-54. 4 Luke vii. 11-17. 

5 See The Incarnation of the Lord, pp. 167 seq. 

6 Luke vii. 18-35 ; Matt xi. 2-19. 



178 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

» 

probably put at the close of this period the sab- 
bath healing of the man with a withered hand, 1 
which provoked the ire of the Pharisees so that 
they conspired with the Herodians to destroy Him. 

Jesus now goes to the feast of Pentecost, 
and while in Jerusalem heals the infirm man on 
the sabbath, and the battle with the Pharisees 
begins in Jerusalem. 2 

2. From the feast of Pentecost Jesus returns 
for His third Galilean ministry. He partakes of 
the hospitality of a Pharisee and accepts the 
loving homage of a Magdalene whom He ab- 
solves from all her sins. 3 This is probably Mary 
Magdalene, who, with other women, accompany 
Him and minister to Him on His third tour of 
Galilee, mentioned by Luke at the beginning of 
his narrative, 4 but by Mark at its close. 5 

This period embraces the four months from 
Pentecost to Tabernacles. The incidents men- 
tioned besides these above are : the discourse 
representing that His disciples were His real 
brethren, rather than His kindred ; 6 the giving 
of the parables of the kingdom at the seaside ; T 



1 Markiii. 1-6. 2 John v. 

3 Luke vii. 36-50. * Luke viii. 1-3. 

5 Mark vi. 6 ; Matt. ix. 35. 6 Mark iii. 31-35, 

7 Mark iv. 1-34. 



OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 179 

the crossing the Sea of Galilee and stilling of 
the tempest ; 1 the visit to Decapolis and healing 
of the Gerasene demoniac ; 2 the raising from 
the dead of Jairus' daughter, and the healing 
of the woman with an issue. 3 These are again 
only a few of many incidents in a ministry of 
four months. For the events actually mentioned 
would have taken only a few days. 

Near the close of this period, Jesus learns that 
the Baptist has been put to death, and that 
Herod is alarmed for fear that He is John the 
Baptist risen from the dead. This makes it 
extremely perilous for Jesus to continue His 
public ministry in Galilee. Accordingly, having 
trained the Twelve sufficiently, He sends them 
forth in pairs in a mission throughout Galilee to 
carry on His work. 4 It is altogether probable, 
however, that Jesus always kept one of these 
pairs with Him, changing them, however, from 
time to time. 

IV. Ministry in Judcea and Percea. 

During the absence of the Twelve Jesus goes 
away from Galilee to carry on His ministry in 
Judaea and in Peraea. 



1 Mark iv. 35-41. 2 Mark v. 1-20. 3 Mark v. 21-43. 

4 Mark vi, 7-13 ; Matt. ix. 36 seq.; Luke ix. 1-6, 



180 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

1. He journeys through Samaria to Jeru- 
salem secretly in order to avoid arrest from 
Herod, 1 and arrives late at the feast of Taber- 
nacles. James and John are with Him on this 
journey and doubtless remain with Him during 
all His ministry in Jerusalem. At this feast of 
Tabernacles, Jesus wrought no miracle, but 
taught in the temple and had some discussions 
with the Pharisees. 2 The Sanhedrim sent officers 
to arrest Him but they were unable to do it. 3 It 
is probable that it was at this time that the in- 
terview of Jesus with Nicodemus took place. 4 
At all events Nicodemus at this time defends 
Him before the Sanhedrim. 5 At this visit to 
Jerusalem He also visited Martha and Mary. 6 
Jesus evidently avoided bringing on a crisis at 
this feast, for he had determined upon a ministry 
in Peraea which now begins immediately after 
Tabernacles. 

2. Prior to the going to Persea Himself, He 
selects and commissions seventy disciples to go 
before Him on a mission thither just as He had 
sent the Twelve on a mission in Galilee. The 
Gospels give us a number of sayings of Jesus 



1 Luke ix. 51-56; John vii. 2-10. 2 John vii. 11-43. 
3 John vii. 44-49. 4 John iii. 1-15. 

5 John vii. 50-52. 6 Luke x. 38-42. 



OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 181 

with reference to the special call to disciples, 
attached to the incident of the scribe who desired 
to follow Him. 1 Doubtless Matthew is correct 
in putting them during the previous Galilean 
ministry. They are given here by Luke as in- 
troductory to the Mission of the Seventy. 

It is probable that Jesus left James and 
John behind Him in Jerusalem to continue His 
mission there ; for they were well acquainted 
there even with the family of the high-priest. 2 
It is also probable that Matthew and Thomas 
joined Him for the Peraean ministry. 3 The first 
Peraean ministry was for about two months, from 
Tabernacles to Dedication. The incidents men- 
tioned by Luke as belonging to this period are 
few. The question of the lawyer as to the way 
of life, with the parable of the good Samaritan 
probably belongs here. 4 Jesus teaches His dis- 
ciples the Lord's prayer. 5 He casts out the 
dumb demon. 6 He breakfasts with a Pharisee. 7 
This is followed by a discussion with the Phari- 
sees. Jesus rebukes a man for coveting a share 
in the estate of his brother. 8 He warns to 



1 Luke ix. 57-62; Matt. viii. 19-22. 2 John xviii. 15. 

3 See pp. 76 seq. i Luke x. 25-37. 5 Luke xi. 1 seq. 
3 Luke xi. 14-29; cf. Matt. xii. 22 seq. 

1 Luke xi. 37 seq. 8 Luke xii. 13-15. 



182 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

repent with reference to the slaying of the 
Galileans by Pilate and the fall of the tower in 
Siloam. 1 He heals a woman with an infirmity 
in the synagogue on the sabbath, and again has 
to meet the opposition of the Pharisees. 2 These 
events, with the most of the logia and parables 
attached, probably belong to this period of the 
Persean ministry. 

3. Jesus now goes up to the feast of Dedica- 
tion in Jerusalem. 3 Why He went up to this 
feast, which was not one of obligation, we are 
not told; unless the warning of the Pharisees 
against Herod belongs here. 4 In this case it was 
for prudential reasons. He was now between 
Scylla and Charybdis, and the crisis could not 
long be postponed. Fully aware of this, Jesus 
had no longer any reason for reserve, and at 
this feast in Jerusalem He speaks fully and 
strongly of His Messiahship and His pre-exist- 
ence. 

The story of John 5 tells us that the people 
were about to stone Him for blasphemy, if He 
had not escaped from their hands. It also seems 
necessary to bring in here, John viii. 31-x. 21, giv- 



1 Luke xiii. 1-9. 2 Luke xiii. 10-17. 

3 John x. 22-39. * Luke xiii. 31-33. 

5 John x. 22-39. 



OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 183 

ing the assertion of His pre-existence before 
Abraham, the healing of the blind man on the 
Sabbath, and the claiming his allegiance to Him- 
self as Messiah ; and also the allegory of the 
Good Shepherd. 

His impending death is clearly in His mind, 
and He does not hesitate to intimate it in His 
discourses and discussions. From now on He 
claims the recognition of His Messiahship. 

4. Jesus returns for a brief ministry in Persea. 
During this period He takes a sabbath meal 
with a Pharisee and heals a man with the 
dropsy. 1 He gives a series of logia to His dis- 
ciples as to their counting the cost of disciple- 
ship, 2 and the three parables of receiving the 
lost in defence of His own associating with 
publicans and sinners. 3 Then follow parables of 
the shrewd steward, and Dives and Lazarus, 
and other logia and parables. 4 Thus the material 
belonging to this time is, with a single excep- 
tion, altogether teaching. Doubtless some of 
this is out of place, given here for topical rea- 
sons. But it is also probable that Jesus avoided 
publicity, and that therefore He would not work 



1 Luke xiv. 1 seq. 2 Luke xiv. 25-35. s Luke xv. 

* Luke xvi.-xvii. 10. 



184 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

miracles. He gave His teaching quietly and to 
a great extent in private. The Seventy were all 
this time engaged in their missions. 

5. The Persean ministry is brought to an 
abrupt close by the summons to Jerusalem on 
the death of Lazarus. Jesus goes, although as 
He and His disciples clearly see, at great risks. 
He raises Lazarus from the dead. But this only 
attracts the greater attention to Him, and the 
Sanhedrim determine to put Him to death. 1 
Accordingly He retires to Ephraim on the bor- 
ders of Samaria. 2 After a brief sojourn there He 
goes northward through Samaria to Galilee, 3 re- 
ceiving the recognition of the Samaritan woman 
and her friends that He was the Messiah. 

V. The crisis in Galilee. 

It is probable that Jesus' assertion of His Mes- 
siahship in the synagogue of Nazareth and His 
rejection by His early associates were immedi- 
ately on His arrival in Galilee. 4 He was probably 
now joined by Andrew and Peter, who accom- 
pany Him in His rapid and secret journey north- 
ward to Phoenicia, 5 and then along the frontier 



1 John xi. i-53. 2 John xi. 54. 3 John iv. 4-43. 

4 Matt. xiii. 54-58 ; Mark vi. 1-6 ; Luke iv. 16-30. 

5 Markvii. 24-30. 



OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 185 

to Decapolis, at the northeast end of the Sea of 
Galilee, where He heals a deaf mute. 1 

Here at Bethsaida, probably, according to ap- 
pointment, the Twelve all join Him. He is 
resorted to by multitudes, in the wilderness, and 
when they suffer from hunger He works the 
miracle of feeding them. After this the disciples 
cross the stormy sea, and are diverted from their 
course, so that they land in the plain of Genne- 
saret, and make their way to Capernaum. Jesus 
has joined them. He now delivers His last dis- 
course in the Synagogue of Capernaum. 2 This 
is connected with discussions with the Pharisees 
as to His giving them a sign of His Messiahship, 
and also a dispute as to purification. 3 

Jesus and His disciples now go to Bethsaida, 
where a blind man is healed. 4 Then a rapid 
journey northward to Csesarea Philippi is made. 
Here Peter, as the spokesman of the Twelve, 
recognizes Jesus as the Messiah. 5 Jesus now 
tells them that He is the suffering Messiah, and 
that He is about to die in Jerusalem and rise 



1 Mark v 

8 Mark v 

8 Mark v 

4 Mark v 

5 Mark v 



i. 31-37. 

. 30 seq., viii. 1 seq. ; John vi. 

i. 1-23, viii. 11. seq. ; John vi. 59. 

ii. 22-26. 

ii. 27-30, Messiah of the Gospels, p. 93. 



186 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

from the dead. 1 This is speedily followed by the 
Christophany of the Transfiguration to confirm 
the faith of the chief apostles. 2 In the meantime 
the other disciples try in vain to heal the de- 
moniac boy ; then Jesus, coming down from the 
mount, rebukes them for their lack of faith, and 
heals him. 3 

Jesus now rapidly returns to Capernaum on 
His way to the last Passover, which was near. 4 
Probably here the incident of the finding of a 
shekel in a fish occurred. 5 The disciples, in 
view of the impending establishment of the 
kingdom, dispute as to their relative rank in it, 
and are rebuked by Jesus. 6 

Jesus journeys to Jerusalem by the ordi- 
nary route along the borders of Samaria and 
Galilee. 7 On the way He heals the ten lepers. 
He then goes on to make a farewell visit to 
Perasa. On this journey the dispute as to divorce 
takes place, then the blessing of little children, 
and the giving of counsels of perfection to the 
rich young man, and He promises reward to the 
faithful disciples. 8 Jesus in Persea is rejoined by 



1 Mark viii. 31, ix. 1, 30-32. 2 Mark ix. 2-13. 

3 Mark ix. 14-29. 4 Mark ix. 30-33. 5 Matt. xvii. 24-27. 

6 Mark ix. 33-59. 7 Mark x. 1 ; Luke xvii. 1 1 ; Matt. xix. 1-2. 

8 Mark x. 2-31 ; Luke xviii. 15-30 ; Matt. xix. 3 seq. 



OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 187 

the Seventy. He now gives several additional 
logia. He also makes another announcement of 
His impending death and resurrection, 1 and re- 
bukes the ambition of James and John. 2 He 
then leaves Peraea for Jericho, where He heals a 
blind man and visits Zacchaeus. 3 

VI. Passion Week, 

Jesus arrives in Bethany six days before Pass- 
over, late on Friday, or the evening which began 
Saturday. He dines at the house of Simon on 
this day, is anointed by Mary, and is visited 
by large numbers of His disciples and others. 
He spends the night at Bethany. 4 

On Sunday, accompanied by throngs of His 
disciples, the Twelve, the Seventy, the Galile- 
ans, the Pereeans, the believers of Jerusalem, and 
a great multitude, He enters Jerusalem as the 
Messiah. He returns at night to Bethany with 
the Twelve. 5 

On Monday morning, on His way to the 
temple, He curses the barren fig-tree. He en- 
ters the temple, and probably owing to an at- 



1 Mark x. 32-34. J Mark x. 35-45. 

8 Mark x. 46 seq. ; Luke xviii. 35 seq. 

4 Mark xiv. 3-9 ; John xii. 1-11. 

6 Mark xi. 1-11 ; John xii. 12-19. 



188 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

tempt to cheat His disciples in the selecting and 
purchase of a Paschal lamb, His indignation is 
excited against the traders, and He casts them 
out of the temple. He returns to Bethany for 
the night. 1 

On Tuesday, on His way to the temple, He 
passes the withered fig-tree. He enters into the 
temple and finds the Pharisees all ready to chal- 
lenge His authority. After a sharp contention 
with them He retires from the temple to the 
Mount of Olives, and gives His great eschato- 
logicai discourse to His disciples. 2 

On Wednesday the battle with the Pharisees 
is continued. According to a plan devised the 
previous day, the Herodians and Sadducees unite 
with them in their efforts to entrap Jesus. At 
last they are silenced, and nothing remains but to 
make out a case against Him and have Him put 
to death. On this day, two days before the Pass- 
over, the Sanhedrim resolve on His death, and 
soon after a bargain was made with Judas to be- 
tray Him. 3 

On the morning of Thursday the disciples are 
instructed to prepare for the Passover. 4 Jesus, 



1 Markxi. 12-19; John ii. 13-22. 

2 Mark xi. 20-xii. 12 ; xiii. 



3 Mark xii. 13 seq.; Luke xxii. 1-6. * Mark xiv. 12-16. 



OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 189 

for the last time, visits the temple, meets with 
some Greeks, hears the theophanic voice, and is 
finally rejected by the people. He departs 
from the temple and hides Himself. 1 At night- 
fall, the beginning of Friday, Jesus has a farewell 
supper with the Twelve, after which He institutes 
the Lord's Supper, and gives the Twelve instruc- 
tion in a long discourse. 2 After supper, later in 
the night, He goes with the Eleven to Geth- 
semane for His final wrestle and prayer. Here 
He is arrested by the officers of the Sanhedrim, 
Judas betraying Him with a kiss. He is before 
morning tried by the Sanhedrim, and, on His 
affirming His Messiahship under oath, is con- 
demned to death for blasphemy. When day 
arrives, He is sent to Pilate, with a petition for 
His death, and from Pilate to Herod, and back 
again to Pilate, who seeks to avoid the responsi- 
bility for the death of an innocent man. But 
Pilate finally yields to the persistence of the 
Sanhedrim, and, after scourging Him, sends Him 
in charge of Roman soldiers to be crucified as 
King of the Jews. He died at the time of the 
sacrifice of the paschal victims in the temple, as 
the great and final Paschal Lamb. He was 



John xii. 20 seq. * Mark xiv. 17-25 ; John xiii. scq. 



190 NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE OF JESUS 

taken down in haste from the cross, and buried 
before the Sabbath began. 1 

Saturday was the great sabbath, the first day 
of the feast of unleavened bread, during which 
Jesus remained in the grave. 2 

VII. The Resurrection, 

On Sunday, the day of the Omer offering, 
Jesus rose from the dead in the early morning. 
He appeared first to Mary Magdalene and other 
women, 3 then to Peter, 4 then to Cleopas and an- 
other disciple in the afternoon, 5 then to the Ten 
in the upper room of the Last Supper, Thomas 
being absent. 6 These four appearances on the 
day of resurrection were followed by six others. 
The first of these was on the next Sunday in 
Jerusalem to the Eleven, Thomas being present. 7 
The remaining appearances may all be arranged 
on successive Sundays, and probably they so oc- 
curred, giving thereby to Sunday the name of 
the Lord's Day, and establishing the custom of 



1 Mark xiv. 26 seq.; Matt. xxvi. 30 seq.; Luke xxii.39 seq.; 
John xviii. 1 seq. 

2 Matt, xxvii. 62 ; John xix. 31. 

3 Mark xvi. 1 seq.; John xx. 1 seq. 

* Luke xxiv. 34 ; 1 Cor. xv. 4, 5. 5 Luke xxiv. 13-35. 

6 John xx. 19-25, ' John xx. 25-29. 



OUTLINE OF THE LIFE OF JESUS 191 

assembling to meet the Lord on that day. Four 
of these occurred doubtless in Galilee : on the 
third Sunday, the appearance to the Eleven on 
a mountain, 1 on the fourth Sunday, the appear- 
ance to the Seven by the Sea, 2 on the fifth Sun- 
day, the appearance to the five hundred brethren 
at once, and on the sixth Sunday, the appearance 
to James the Lord's brother. 3 

The disciples then seem to have gone to Jeru- 
salem, where, on the seventh Sunday, the Sun- 
day before Pentecost, Jesus made His final 
appearance on the Mount of Olives, gave them 
their final Commission, made His farewell prayer, 
and ascended to His heavenly throne to reign 
over the Church and the world as the Messiah, 
the Son of the Father, the second person of the 
Holy Trinity. 4 



1 Matt, xxviii. 16, 17. 2 John xxi. 1-24. 

3 1 Cor. xv. 6, 7. 

* Mark xvi. 19 ; Luke xxiv. 50, 51 ; Acts i. 6-11. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



Acts of the Apostles, 112, 113. 
Adoration of Magi, 160. 
Advent of Kingdom, 65. 
Ambition of James and John, 65. 
Andrew, 10, 34, 47, 95, 149. 
Annunciations, 160 seq., 168. 
Anointing of Jesus, 28, 98, 102. 
Apostle, term, 34. 
Apostolic Commission, 30 seq. 
Appendix to Mark, 114, 132. 
Aramaic, 126 seq. 
Archelaus, 170. 
Arrest of the Baptist, 2 seq., 

20 seq. 
Ascension, 114, 116, 118, 119, 

191. 
Ave Maria, 162. 

B 

Baptism, 123; of Jesus, 9, 10, 

16, 173. 
Beelzebub, 133. 
Beginning of Jesus' Ministry, 

1 seq. 
Benedictus, 163. 
Bethany, 98, 101, 102. 
Bethlehem, 169. 
Bethsaida, 47, 48, 95. 
Betrayal, 108. 
5ir^ o/ Jesus, 167 seq. 
Blass, 135. 
Blessing Children, 65. 



C 



Cossarea Philippi, 48, 96, 97, 

149. 
Caiaphas, 87, 92. 
Cana, 10, 53, 150, 151. 
Canticles of Luke, 160 seq. 
Capernaum, 10, 11, 47, 88, 95, 

97. 
Centurion's Servant, 23. 
Cleansing of Temple, 53, 99, 

103, 150. 
Cleopas, 117. 
Counsel of Perfection, 65. 
Crisis in Galilee, 184 seq. 
Crucifixion, 108. 

D 

Dalman, 126. 
Dalmanutha, 48. 
Decapolis, 47, 88, 95. 
Dedication (feast of), 44, 55, 

71, 84, 86, 92, 94, 153 seq., 

181. 
Delitzsch, F., 62. 
Dives and Lazarus, 73. 
Divorce, 65, 89. 
Dogmatic use, 145 seq., 156. 

E 

Elizabeth, 17. 

Emmaus, 114, 115. 

Entry into Jerusalem, 98, 102. 



193 



194 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



Ephraim, 45, 88, 92, 94. 
Eschatological Discourse, 106, 

133. 
Eusebius, 126. 



Fasting, 13, 19, 80. 
Feasts of Jesus, 50 seq. 
Feeding of Multitude, 47, 54, 

95, 133. 
Fig tree, 70, 103 seq. 
Forty days, 110 seq. 

G 

Gadarenes, 29. 

Galilean Ministry, 3 seq., 28, 
175 seq. 

Genealogy, 159 seq. 

Gennesaret, 48, 95. 

Gethsemane, 108. 

Gospel, of John, 140 seq.; of 
Luke, 136 seq.; of Mark, 129 
seq. ; of Matthew, 1 34 seq. 

Grenfell, 130. 

H 

Haggada, 171 seq. 

Hebrew Sources, 126 seq., 133 

seq., 164. 
Herod, 20, 89, 108, 169 seq. 
Herodians, 79, 99, 105. 
Higher Criticism, 142. 
HUM, 79. 
#ofr/ Spirit, Sin against, 68, 

84, 133. 



Infancy of Jesus, 159 seq. 



James, 18, 45, 110, 115, 117. 

Jericho, 98. 

Jerusalem Ministry, 43 seq. 

Jerusalem Source, 135. 

Jews, 144. 

John, the Apostle, 10, 34, 45, 181 . 

John, the Baptist, 17 seq., 21 

seq., 25, 41, 172. 
Jonah, sign of, 68, 88. 
Joseph, 109, 168 seq. 
Judcean Ministry, 179 seq. 
Judas, 59, 102. 

K 

Kingdom of God, 7. 

L 

Lazarus, 45, 86, 92, 98, 102, 

152. 
Leaven of Pharisees, 88. 
Logia of Matthew, 77, 125 seq. 
Lord's Day, 118 seq. 
Lord's Prayer, 67. 
Lord's Supper, 57, 61, 122 seq. 
Luke, 113. 

M 

Magdala, 95. 

Magnificat, 163. 

Mar A:, 112; Gospel of, 129 seq.; 

Original, 4; Hebrew, 6; Greek, 

6; Chronological order of, 7, 8. 
Martha, 44. 
Mar?/ Magdalene, 82, 110, 111, 

114, 117. 
Mar?/, tae Virgin, 17, 44, 98. 
Matthew, 77, 87, 130, 181; CaZJo/, 

12; Gospel of, 134 seq.; Logia 

of, 77, 125 seq. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



195 



Message of Baptist to Jesus, 21 

seq., 41. 
Messiahship, 10, 47, 49, 86, 91 

seq., 149 seq., 151. 
Messianic Ideals, 21, 121, 177. 
Miracles, terms, 142. 

N 

Nathanael, 10, 34, 149. 
Nazareth, 11, 17, 46, 94, 170. 
Nicodemus, 53, 54, 109, 145, 151. 

Nunc Dimitlis, 163. 

O 

Omer offering, 14, 15, 109. 



Papias, 125. 

Parables, 74 seq., 136 seq., 171; 

of the Kingdom, 29; of Salva- 
tion, 72, 137. 
Paschal meal, 57 seq., 60, 63. 
Passion Week, 101 seq., 187. 
Passover, 14, 15, 51 seq., 54, 107, 

109. 
Paul, 110, 115, 116. 
Pentecost, 27, 52, 178. 
Percean Ministry, 36, 43 seq., 64 

seq., 84, 97, 136 seq., 179 seq. 
Peter, 10, 34, 77, 95, 96, 110, 111, 

113, 115, 117, 149. 
Pharisees, 79 seq., 144. 
Pharisee and Publican, 65, 89. 
Philip, 10, 34, 47. 
Pilate, 99, 108, 109. 
Postresurrection Discourses, 122 

seq., 156. 
Prayer of Jesus, 121 . 
Prediction of Jesus' Resurrection, 

65, 96 seq., 98. 



Pre-existence, 84, 86, 93, 155. 
Prologue of John, 148. 
Purification, 13, 19, 80. 
Purim, 52. 

R 

Reland, 17. 

Resch, 6, 62, 126, 128, 130, 132, 

134. 
Resurrection, 110 seq., 190. 
Robinson, Edward, 17, 51, 52, 59. 

S 

Sabbath, controversies, 13, 14; 

cures, 22, 72, 81 seq.; great, 58. 
Sadducees, 79, 99, 105. 
Samaria, 45, 88, 94, 151, 180. 
Sanhedrim, 53, 61, 63, 89, 91, 99, 

106, 108. 
Sermon on the Mount, 23, 35, 

129. 
Seventy, commission of, 31 seq., 

181; return of, 97. 
Shammai, 79. 
Sidon, 46, 95. 
Son, of the Father 82, 93; of God, 

170; of Man, 111. 
Sunday, 118 seq. 
Sychar, 94. 
Synoptic Gospels, 125 seq. 



Tabernacles (feast of), 16, 44, 83, 

153, 154, 173, 180. 
Tatian, 9, 45, 47, 52, 53, 151, 

157. 
Temptation of Jesus, 10, 18, 173. 
Theophany, 173. 



196 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



Thomas, 77, 87, 116, 130, 181. 

Tischcndorf, 14. 

Transfiguration, 96, 186. 

Twelve, 31 seq., 110; absence of, 
40 seq.; commission of, 30, 31 
seq., 120; consecration of, 23; 
return of, 40 seq., 95. 

Tyre, 46, 95. 

V 
Virgin Mary, 165 seq., 168 seq. 



W 

Weiss, B., 14, 128, 130, 135. 
Wendt, 142. 
Westcott and Hort, 14. 
Wisdom of Jesus, 129, 132, 171. 
Woes against Pharisees, 85, 129. 



Zacchceus, 98. 
Zacharias, 17. 



THE WRITINGS OF 

PROF. CHARLES A. BRIGGS, D.D. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers 
153-157 Fifth Avenue NEW YORK 



The Incarnation of the Lord. 

8vo. Net, $1.50. 

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His Incarnation have become in any degree questionable teachings." 
— The Advance. 

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A General Introduction to the 
Study of Holy Scripture. 

The Principles, Methods, History, and Results of its Several 
Departments, and of the Whole. Crown 8vo. $3.00 net. 

Dr. Briggs's new book covers the whole ground of Biblical 
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and which has been here revised, enlarged to double its former 
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PROFESSOR BRIGGS' S WRITINGS. 



Messianic Prophecy. 



The Prediction of the fulfilment of Redemption through the 
Messiah. A critical study of the Messianic passages of the Old 
Testament in the order of their development. By Charles A. 
Briggs, D.D., Edward Robinson Professor of Biblical Theology 
in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. One volume, 
crown octavo, $2.50. 

" Messianic Prophecy is a subject of no common interest, and this book is no ordin- 
ary book. It is, on the contrary, a work of the very first order, the ripe product of 
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noblest business It has been worth while to commend this book at some 

length to the attention of Bible students, because both the subject and the treatment 
entitle it to rank among the very foremost works of the generation in the department 
of Exegetical Theology. Union Seminary is to be congratulated that it is one of her 
Professors who, in a noble line of succession has produced it. The American Church 
is to be congratulated that the author is an American, and Presbyterians that he is a 
Presbyterian. A Church that can yield such books has large possibilities."— New 
York Evangelist. 

"It is second in importance to no theological work which has appeared in this 
country during the present century." — The Critic. 

"His arduous labor has been well expended, for he has finally produced a book 
which will give great pleasure to Christians of all denominations The pro- 
found learning displayed in the book commends it to the purchase of all clergymen 
who wish for the most critical and exact exposition of a difficult theme ; while its 
earnestness and eloquence will win for it a place in the library of every devout lay- 
man."— N. Y. Journal of Commerce. 

" It is rich with the fruits of years of zealous and unwearied study, and of an ample 
learning. In it we have the first English work on Messianic Prophecy which stands 
on the level of modern Biblical studies, It is one of the most important and valuable 
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structive : it is spiritually helpful. We commend the work not only to ministers, but 
to intelligent laymen."— The Independent. 

" On the pervading and multiform character of this promise, see a recent, as well 
as valuable authority, in the volume of Dr. Briggs, of the New York Theological 
Seminary, on 'Messianic Prophecy.'" — W. E. Gladstone. 

" Prof. Briggs 1 Messianic Prophecy is a most excellent book, in which I greatly 
rejoice."— Prof. Franz Delitzsch. 

"All scholars will join in recognizing its singular usefulness as a text-book. It ha6 
been much wanted."— Rev. Canon Cheyne. 

"It is a book that will be consulted and prized by the learned, and that will add to 
the author's deservedly high reputation for scholarship. Evidences of the ability, 
learning and patient research of the author are apparent from the beginning to the 
end of the volume, while the style is remarkably fine." — Phila. Presbyterian. 

" His new book on Messianic Phrophecy is a worthy companion to his indispens- 
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future of Old Testament studies in this country is that those who teach should satisfy 
their students of their historic connection with the religion and theology of the past. 
Prof. Briggs has the consciousness of such a connection in a very full degree, and 
yet he combines this with a frank and unreserved adhesion to the principles of modern 

criticisms He has produced the first English text-book on the subject of 

Messianic Prophecy which a modern teacher can use."— The London Academy. 



PROFESSOR BRIOGS'S WRITINGS. 



The Messiah of the Gospels. 

By Charles A. Briggs, D.D., Edward Robinson Professor of 
Biblical Theology in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. 
Crown 8vo, $2.00. 

The Messiah of the Apostles. 

By Charles A. Briggs, D.D., Edward Robinson Professor ©f 
Biblical Theology in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. 
Crown 8vo, $3.00. 

Prof. Briggs in these two volumes takes up the ideas presented in 
the author's "Messianic Prophecy of the Old Testament," and traces 
their development in New Testament prophecy. The method and 
scope of the work are entirely original, and it is full of fresh state- 
ments of the doctrine of the person and work of ChrLt as the result 
of the new point of view that is taken. 

"It is learned, sound, evangelical, and is a useful contribution to the Christological 
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"It requires but a cursory examination of this hook to discover that it is the work 
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is well worthy of a place in his library."— Reformed Church Messenger. 

" The book, as to far the larger part of it, is one of the best and most precious ever 
written upon the person, the offices, the work of the Son of God and Son of man. The 
author has the Scriptures thoroughly at command, and without quotation-marks re- 
peats the very words, adding passage to passage, phrase to phrase, with splendid and 
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"Like all Dr. Briggs' books, the work though given in lucid and ringing Engli-h 
has depth and breadth of learning."— Boston ZiorCs Herald. 

" As we lay the book down we have a renewed sense of the courage, independence 
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" . . . . it is a book of great merit, and one that no student of the New Tes- 
tament can afford not to read with candor and diligence.' 1 — The Examiner. 

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" Dr. Briggs is to be congratulated on having brought to a successful termination 
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PROFESSOR BRIOOSS WRITINGS. 



Biblical Study. 

Its Principles, Methods, and History, together with a Catalogue 
of Books of Reference. By Charles A. Briggs, D.D., Edward 
Robinson Professor of Biblical Theology in the Union Theological 
Seminary, New York. Fourth Edition. One volume, crown 8vo, 
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" A choice book, for which we wish wide circulation and deep influence in its own 
land and also recognition among us. The author maintains his position with so much 
spirit and in such beautiful language that his book makes delightful reading, and it is 
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Moreover, he is unusually familiar with German literature of recent date as well as 
with that of the earlier period. 11 — Zarncke's Literaturisches Centralblatt fur Deutsch- 
land. 

"-Here is a theological writer, thoroughly scientific in his methods, and yet not 
ashamed to call himself evangelical. One great merit of this handbook is the light 
which it throws on the genesis of modern criticism and exegesis. Those who use it 
will escape the crudities of many English advocates of half-understood theories. Not 
the least of its merits is the well-selected catalogue of books of reference— English, 
French, and German. We are sure that no student will regret sending for the book.*' 
— The Academy, London. 

"Dr. Briggs begins with a chapter upon the advantages of Biblical study, and the 
subjects of the following chapters are : Exegetical Theology, the Languages of the 
Bible, the Bible and Criticism, the Canon and Text of the Bible, Higher Criticism, 
Literary Study of the Bible, Hebrew Poetry, Interpretation of Scripture, Biblical 
Theology, and the Scriptures as a Means of Grace. It will be seen that the subjects 
occupy a wide range, and, ably treated as they are. the volume becomes one of real 
value and utility. Appended to the work is a valuable catalogue of books of reference 
in biblical studies, and three indexes— of Scriptures, of topics, and of books and 
authors. The publishers have done honor to the work, and it deserved it.'" — The 
Churchman. 

" The minister who thoroughly masters this volume will find himself mentally in- 
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find his words mightier, through God, to the pulling down of strongholds." — Boston 
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"After all that we have heard of the higher criticism, it is refreshing to find so 

scholarly and trenchant defences of the old paths His historical account of the 

movement and developement among the English-speaking scholars is very valuable. 
This, and the chapter on the ' Literary Study of the Bible,' are among the best in this 
excellent book. 11 — New York Christian Advocate (Methodist). 

"We are constrained to rank this book as one of the signs of the times in the Amer- 
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" There are many grounds on which the work may be earnestly commended. Large 
reading in German and English, quick apprehension of the salient points of opposing 
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conspire to make the work instructive and attractive. But above all these excellences 
there shines out the author's deep reverence for the whole Bible. 11 — The Examiner 
(Baptist, N. Y.) 



PROFESSOR BRIG OS'S WRITINGS. 



The Bible, the Church, and the 
Reason, 

The Three Great Fountains of Divine Authority. By Charles A. 
Briggs, D.D., Edward Robinson Professor of Biblical Theology in 
Union Theological Seminary, New York. Crown 8vo, $1.75. 

" It consists of lectures delivered at different times since the recent assault 
upon him. In these lectures he does not indicate the least inclination to beat a 
retreat, cry for quarter, or even secure a truce. And yet, with some few excep- 
tions, he does not exhibit personal feeling, nor defend himself personally from 
the charges made against him. He simply elaborates and substantiates the 
positions in his inaugural which have subjected him to public criticism and to a 
possible trial for heresy." — The Christian Union. 

" The problems which are discussed with masterly power in this volume are 
not those of Presbyterianism, or of Protestantism, but of Christianity, and, 
indeed, of all Biblical religion. To any man for whom the question of God and 
revelation has an endlessly fascinating interest, the book will prove suggestive and 
stimulating. We cannot see why even the Israelite and the Roman Catholic should 
not desire to taste — despite the traditions of synagogue and Mother Church — 
this latest forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge." — The Literary World. 

The Higher Criticism of the Hex- 
ateuch. 

By Prof. Charles A. Briggs, D.D.. of Union Theological Sem- 
inary, New York. New, Revised and Enlarged Edition. Crown 

8vo, $2.50. 

Summary op Contents : The Testimony of Scripture— The Traditional Theories— 
The Rise of Criticism— The Documentary and Supplementary Hypothesis— Date 
of Deuteronomy— Development of the Codes— Witness of the History— The Argu- 
ment from Biblical Theology and its Results— Recent Discussions. 
It is with the aim of contributing to a better understanding and higher appreciation 
of the documents of the Bible that the book has been written, which is designed for 
the general public rather than for Hebrew students, and, for the most part, techni- 
cal material has been put into the Appendix, which constitutes a considerable part 
of the volume. This new edition is the result of a thorough revision of the entire work, 
and contains numerous additions of importance. It is also characterized by a thorough 
study of the types of Hebrew law and the history of Hebrew legislation. It should 
therefore be of great interest to the legal profession. 

" The volume before us gives'in plain language Dr. Briggs' belief. No minister can 
afford to be ignorant of the subject, or of Dr. Briggs 1 position."— 27m; Christian 
Enquirer. 



rilOFESSOR BRWGSS WRITINGS. 



Whither ? 

A Theological Question for the Times. By Chakleb Augustus 
Briggs, D.D., Edward Robinson Professor of Biblical Theology 
in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. Third Edition. 
One volume, crown 8vo, $1.75. 

" He shows that genuine Christianity has nothing lo lose, but much to gain, by un- 
fettered thought and by the ripest modern scholarship ; that the doctrines which pro- 
gressive theology threatens are no essential part of the historic faith, but rather out- 
worn garments, woven with warp and woof of tradition and speculation ; that being 
hung upon the noble form of Christianity, have obscured its real proportions, and 
that ' the higher criticism ' of which timid and unscholarly souls are so much afraid, 
is really making the Bible more manifestly the book of God, by relieving it from the 
false interpretations of men."— The Press, Philadelphia. 

" The book is a strong one. It is packed with weighty matter. Its reach is larger 
than any of the author's other works, though its compass is smaller. It contains only 
300 pages, yet it is a critical treatise on Westminster and modern theology, and also 
on church life and Christian unity. It is written in nervous, virile English that holds 
attention. It has unusual grasp and force. The title and the chapter headings sug- 
gest compression: 'Whither?' 'Drifting.' 'Orthodoxy,' 'Changes,' 'Shifting,' 
• Excesses,' 'Failures,' 'Departures,' 'Perplexities,' 'Barriers,' 'Thither.' There 
is a whole history in some of these words, and a whole sermon in others."— The 
Critic, New York. 

"At the same time it is irenic both in tone and tendency. It is noble from 
beginning to end, though the author may possibly place unnecessary emphasis on 
the organic unity of the different denominations of Christendom as the condition 
precedent for a true catholic unity. There is not a touch or smell of rationalism or 
rationalistic speculation in the book, and freely as the author deals with his oppo- 
nents, it is an honest freedom, which will promote good feeling even amid debate." — 
The Independent. 

American Presby terianism : 

Its Origin and Early History, together with an Appendix of Let- 
ters and Documents, many of which have recently been discovered. 
By Charles A. Briggs, D.D., Edward Robinson Professor of 
Biblical Theology in the Union Theological Seminary, New York, 
i volume, crown 8vo, with Maps. $3.00. 

"Tl.e Presbyterian Church owes a debt of gratitude to the enthusiasm and antiquar- 
ian research of Professor Briggs. He seems to have seized the foremost place among 
them, and his vigorous, skilful, and comprehensive researches put all Protestant 
Christians, and especially Congregationalists, under obligation to him." — Boston 
Congregationalism 

"This is an admirable and exhaustive work, full of vigorous thinking, clear and 
careful statement, incisive and judicious criticism, minute yet comprehensive research. 
It is such a book as only a man with a gift for historical inquiry and an enthusiasm 
for the history and principles of his Church could have produced. It represents an 
amazing amount of labor. Dr. Briggs seems to have searched every available source, 
British and American, for printed or written documents bearing on his subjects, and 
he has met with wonderful success. He has made many important discoveries, illus- 
trative of the Puritan men and period, useful to himself, but certain also to be helpful 
to all future inquiries in this field." — British Quarterly Review. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

153-157 Fifth Avenue, New York. 



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